Accessible Home Change Log

Version 1.0, build 38 · Updated November 3, 2026

The current version is 1.0, build 38, released November 3, 2026. This log has one entry per release, newest first, and accompanies the Accessible Home User Guide. What changed in each release, newest first. Releases come out twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and each has one entry here that sums up what changed. Your version number is under Settings, then App preferences, then About. The app's What's new page, under Settings, shows this list too.

Downloads

• Accessible Home app (HTML file, 1.0 MB)
  Rename it to index.html and copy it into your Home Assistant, as described under Installing and signing in.
• User guide (PDF, 575 KB)
• User guide (Word document, 65 KB)
• Change log (PDF, 74 KB)
• Change log (Word document, 16 KB)

Version 1.0, build 38, November 3, 2026

An audit release: the whole app, its add-ons and its tooling were reviewed for security, errors, speed and organization, and the findings fixed. Nothing looks different; a lot behaves better.

• Faster to start: everything the app needs at the start is asked for at once instead of one thing after another, and changes that happen while it loads are kept, so a light that changes during start-up is right when it’s shown. Home no longer waits for the weather forecast before showing anything; the forecast fills in at the bottom.
• Faster pages: Energy asks Home Assistant for each thing once and shares it between its parts (it used to make eleven requests in a row, including the heaviest one twice); the Coffee, Cloud, Voice assistant, Add integration, Entity settings, Entity, Helpers and Media library pages each ask for their parts together; “Hide” or “Enable” on a list of entities does them all at once; an Apple Music request searches in one round trip instead of up to four.
• Focus stays with you: a page that refreshes by itself (new notifications, an update finishing) no longer pulls you off the Command box or the Go to menu. A page that waited for something slow (a coffee brew being set, an AI draft, a camera question) no longer closes or redraws a page you have since moved on to. The Coffee page’s Right now list changes only the lines that changed, so a screen reader reading it isn’t thrown off. Live video keeps playing through a refresh of its page instead of reconnecting. Group by no longer announces its result twice.
• Fixed: “A time stored in a helper” can now be chosen for time triggers and conditions (it snapped back to “A fixed time”). Editing a trigger that has several times kept only the one you changed; the others are kept now. On the Cloud page, choosing a language for the cloud voice snapped back to the saved one. Coming back to a camera page after leaving it with live video on showed a dead player. Hiding or enabling a list of entities that included a read-only one did nothing at all; now the others are done and the read-only one is reported. The Events page’s live log kept listing events after Start listening. The log page’s filter and checkbox keep their settings after Refresh. “Try again” after a stopped setup works. A script that couldn’t be opened for a reason other than being written in YAML said it was written in YAML. The Updates page, Install and the automatic check no longer review the same update twice at once. A user created without a working sign-in is removed again. A dead connection after the iPhone comes back from the background is noticed within 5 seconds and reconnected. The local player can no longer be left playing in a replaced element when Next is pressed twice. The Sonos queue fallback no longer announces a problem and then a retraction.
• Briefing: “devices are not responding” now counts devices, not every one of a device’s readings, and leaves out devices that are simply off: the grill thermometer’s probes when the gateway is off, a TV that’s switched off. Low batteries are counted the same way in the briefing and At a glance.
• Command box: pressing Enter again while a command is still being carried out no longer sends it twice. Text that would unlock, open, disarm or switch off something and is passed on to Assist asks first, however it’s worded. “Toggle” on a garage door asks, as Open does. A command that went through but changed nothing (“kitchen light on” when it was already on) says so instead of staying silent, and an Apple Music search that fails is said, not swallowed.
• One gate for risky actions: unlocking or opening a lock, opening a garage door, disarming, sounding a siren and turning a camera off now ask the same question whichever way they’re reached: a button, a room, the Command box, “Run this action now” in the automation editor (including a step aimed at a whole area or device) and “Try this scene now” for a scene that leaves a lock unlocked or a garage open.
• Energy: once the meter-reading window has passed and the new bill isn’t in yet, the projected bill could come out smaller than what was already used; and in the first hours of a month a single reading was projected to hundreds of times its size. Coming Back to Energy within two minutes reuses what it already fetched; Refresh starts afresh.
• Ring Descriptions: a doorbell press within a minute of motion at the same camera was dropped without a word; the heads-up now goes out at once, and a press is never treated as a repeat of a motion.
• Grill Estimates: a probe that was connected but had no readings yet could make the add-on log an error every 30 seconds; an estimate could stop updating mid-cook when a reading arrived without its channel data; one probe’s trouble no longer stops the others; the “give or take” range in the stall was too narrow.
• Security: the address of the app away from home is no longer written in the app file, which Home Assistant serves without a sign-in (see Security in the help), and neither is the new chapter on how the home was set up, which is only in the Word and PDF guide; the general edition carries nothing about any particular home; a camera recording’s signed address can no longer reach the log through an error message.
• Behind the scenes: the help is kept one chapter per file; a release is one command (release.py) that makes the Word and PDF files, the website pages and the source zip; the automatic updates write a daily line to their log so a stopped task shows; the automated tests run against a snapshot of the build.

Version 1.0, build 36, November 2, 2026

Focus that stays where you are, a Grill section, and Energy and Weather each in their own place.

• Focus stays put, everywhere: whatever you press or adjust, a button, switch, menu, temperature or volume, you stay on it, even when the page updates because Home Assistant reported something. Adjusting with VoiceOver counts too. Refreshing keeps the page on screen until the new one is ready, and Back returns you to the exact control you left.
• Thermostat: the numbers, status and switches update in place while you adjust, so the control isn’t redrawn under you.
• Grill section (Alt+Shift+G, or “grill”), for the ThermoWorks RFX thermometer: each meat probe’s temperature, about how long it has to go, its battery and an editable target with a list of common foods; grill air with a target and an alarm range; the RFX Gateway; Speak temperatures on the speakers; and Ask the grill coach. Command box: “grill temperatures”, “grill coach”, “probe 1 target 203”, “grill air 250”.
• Energy is only energy: it opens on Energy use, with the thermostat controls at the end. Gas estimates can be in therms or Ccf, whichever your gas company bills in.
• Weather is its own part, always last, at the bottom of Home. Type “weather” or “forecast” in the Command box to go straight to it.
• Coffee: for any amount of water, how many cups it makes, which basket to use and how much coffee for the profile’s ratio, in Brew now, on one-time brews and schedules, and in the Command box (“which basket for 600”).
• Apple Music: shuffle (“shuffle my playlist on Apple Music”) and your own playlists first.
• A smaller download: the app file now carries only the settings every home uses.

Version 1.0, build 21, October 27, 2026

Three days of changes since the first release: a new look, three new sections, much faster camera descriptions and accurate coffee tracking.

• Go to menu: every section is behind one Go to button at the top, under Home Assistant view, instead of all being on screen.
• Groups that open and close: two or more things of the same type, on Home, in rooms, on device pages and in Favorites, sit under one heading that opens and closes, such as “Lights, 6, 2 on”.
• Home section: the app now opens on Home: Cameras, Lights, Locks, Now playing, Thermostat and Weather, in that order, on one page (Alt+Shift+O, or “home”).
• A new look: sections shown as cards with simple pictures, bigger rounded buttons, and colour that always repeats the words (blue for on, green for fine, amber for needs a look, red for a problem). Dark mode follows your device. Nothing about how the app reads with a screen reader has changed.
• At a glance: a short summary under the status line on every screen: what’s playing, the next coffee brew, and anything that needs attention. It updates quietly, without speaking.
• Cameras section (Alt+Shift+E, or “cameras” in the Command box): each camera with its Announce motion switch, a log of camera events with Ring’s own short descriptions, Show older events, and Ask about this to have a question about any event answered from the recording. “What happened at the cameras” reads the last three events.
• Camera descriptions in seconds, not minutes: the Ring Descriptions add-on fetches Ring’s description about five seconds after motion, using the Ring integration’s existing sign-in. An optional quick heads-up (“Person at the front camera”) comes about seven seconds after motion, with the full description behind it. It also fixes a Ring change from October 24 that had been silently stopping Home Assistant’s instant motion alerts, and restarts the listener by itself if it ever stops.
• Energy section (Alt+Shift+U, or “energy”): the weather and a 7-day forecast, full thermostat controls (Off, Heat, Cool, Heat and cool, the temperatures, Fan and Eco), then energy use in parts that open and close: whether the heating or cooling is running now, how long each ran today, yesterday and each of the last seven days and how many times it started, in a real table, with optional gas and electricity estimates from your prices. “How long did the heat run today” works in the Command box. Run times need the Google Nest integration; through Matter alone, the thermostat doesn’t say when it’s running.
• Network section (Alt+Shift+W, once the UniFi Network integration is set up): whether your UniFi equipment is online, every tracked device with connected ones first, firmware updates, and three network announcements: equipment offline or back, firmware available, and a new device joining.
• Coffee: the last brew shows when it started, the profile, how much water the coffee maker measured against what was asked for, and how long it took. All-time totals from the coffee maker’s lifetime counters, in brews, cups (8 ounces) and gallons; “coffee totals” and “last coffee” work in the Command box. Coffee brew with profile can be shared with Alexa for “Alexa, brew coffee”. The announcement switches moved off the Coffee page to Settings, Announcements, with everything else.
• One Announce script for everything: coffee announcements now go through the same Announce script as everything else, with a category so the Coffee announcements switch still works on its own.
• Media: opening Media lands on the library, the page says less, the item that’s playing is marked in the list, and the queue plays through correctly. Recently played survives app updates.
• Getting around: opening any item puts focus on its first entry, Back returns to the item you opened, and adding a floor keeps you in Accessible Home. Settings groups are menus. The house briefing is shorter: time, date and weather, people, climate and needs attention. The Briefing button sits above the Command box instead of beside it.
• Build numbers: every version now shows its build number in the footer and under Settings, App preferences, About.
• Thermostat by swipe: the temperatures are swipe controls instead of Lower and Raise buttons: double-tap and hold, then slide up or down; a short swipe changes one degree, a longer one more, and it’s sent when you let go. Mode is a menu on the Energy and Home pages too.

Version 1.0, October 24, 2026

The first release. Accessible Home 1.0 puts all of Home Assistant into one page built for screen readers.

• Your devices: Favorites, Rooms, By type and Search, with plain-language state lines and controls for every kind of device, including thermostats, speakers, locks, covers, fans, vacuums, helpers, alarm panels, to-do lists, calendars and cameras.
• The Command box, sound cues and house briefing: typed commands such as “kitchen light on”, short sounds for what happened, and a spoken summary of the house, on the speakers or on this device, with an optional daily briefing.
• Automations, scripts and scenes: a step-by-step editor for every trigger, condition and action, In plain words summaries, Check for problems, run history, blueprints, and drafting or changing them by describing them in words.
• Every part of Settings: integrations with guided setup, devices, entities with bulk changes, areas, floors, labels, categories, helpers, people, zones, voice assistants, Home Assistant Cloud, add-ons, backups, logs, history, developer tools and restarts.
• Spoken announcements: one Announce script for everything Home Assistant says, with switches for where it plays, quiet hours, volume and home or away, and an Announcements page that can announce any device, detail or Home Assistant event.
• Media: your library on this device or any speaker, with Now playing, speakers playing together, moving playback, a sleep timer, picking up where you left off, and the next file playing by itself.
• Cameras: AI descriptions from a fresh picture, on screen or on your speakers, live video, snapshots and recordings.
• Coffee: a Coffee section for the Fellow Aiden, with Brew now, one-time brews you can change or cancel, and regular schedules.
• Updates you can trust: every Home Assistant update is reviewed against what Accessible Home uses before you install it, risky ones are held back in Home Assistant too, installs show real progress, and the app checks itself after each update.
• Built to be safe: a strict security policy, checked links, protection from being framed by other sites, and questions before anything risky, asked on the page with focus on the safe answer.