Home Assistant OS 18.0 is out now, here's what's new

The developers of the Home Assistant home automation suite have announced the full release of Home Assistant Operating System 18.0. The first major update since January adds new functionality to the Home Assistant-focused Linux distribution.

To be clear: Home Assistant OS, formerly called HassOS, is not to be confused with the Home Assistant (HA) software suite itself, which has its own release cycle and can be installed on many operating systems. However, Home Assistant OS provides a convenient, dedicated environment for running HA, typically in VMs or on Raspberry Pi devices.

What's new

• Easy RPi firmware updates: You can now update your Raspberry Pi's bootloader firmware on a running Home Assistant OS instance. Just enter the command ha os boards raspberrypi firmware update and any available updates will be installed.
  • On Raspberry Pi 5 devices specifically, you must be running firmware 2025-02-12 or higher in order to use Home Assistant OS.
• Unified system names: All mentions of "hassos" or "HassOS" in Home Assistant OS files and services have been replaced with "haos".
  • This means you need to update any scripts you've made that reference prefixes like hassos- or HassOS-m though disk partition and filesystem labels on existing systems will not change.

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New In LinuxJordan Gloor

What's getting better

• Memory management: Automatically-created swap files have been optimized for low and higher-RAM devices, replacing the older one-percentage-fits-all approach.
• Writing new images: Data partitions on new HA installations are now created only at the initial required size instead of using up all unused space, meaning the image writing process is shorter.
  • As your data grows, the data partition grows with it.
• First boots: You can now expect a better installaiton and first-boot experience, as the landing page has been given a facelift, Core installation wizards now includes a progress bar, and new HAOS instances now more reliably appear on mobile Home Assistant apps.

Zooming out

Why this update matters: Home Assistant is a clear leader in the open source smarthome scene, and updates to its dedicated Linux distribution increase its accessibility.

My take: I have very little smart home hardware, so Home Assistant doesn't appeal much to me. Still, I'm impressed with the developers' work toward efficient storage and memory use.

Diving in

The fineprint: Read HAOS 18.0 release notes on GitHub to learn more. Technical improvements to filesystems and release upgrades for the kernel and build systems are also listed there.

Get it now: If you have a running HAOS, you can follow the typical update process to get HAOS 18.0 (after performing a backup, of course). To start fresh, follow the HAOS installation instructions for your device.