Discover the Latest Home Assistant 0.118 Features: Grid Cards, Logbook Enhancements, and More

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In this article, we explore the exciting new features and updates coming to the Home Assistant Dashboard in version 0.118. This rapid development pace continues to bring innovative tools and enhancements to Home Assistant, making it easier for you to manage your smart home setups.

Contents

Home Assistant 0.118 Gets a Grid Card

One of the most anticipated features in Home Assistant 0.118 is the introduction of the Grid Card. This addition will significantly enhance the Dashboard's layout capabilities, combining the functionalities of the Vertical Stack and Horizontal Stack Cards. The Grid Card allows you to add any other card within it, automatically creating a new row of equal size as the one above it whenever you fill up a row.

To create a Vertical Stack, set the number of columns to one. For a Horizontal Stack, set the number of columns to equal the number of cards. This flexibility will help you create cleaner, more organized dashboards effortlessly.

Home Assistant dashboard showcasing a grid layout with various entities. The top row includes icons for “Ceiling Lights,” “Bed Light,” and “Front Door,” each represented by corresponding icons. Below them, the “Ecobee” thermostat icon is displayed. The bottom row features three tiles with images of people, labelled “Office,” “Kitchen,” and an unnamed location. The “Office” tile indicates that the light is “On,” while the “Kitchen” tile shows a light bulb icon in the corner, suggesting it's a light control. This grid arrangement demonstrates a visually organized and user-friendly interface for managing smart home devices.
Grid Card Configuration interface in Home Assistant 0.118, displaying settings for a light entity named “ceiling_lights.” The interface includes options to set the entity, icon, name, and various display preferences such as showing the name, state, and icon. Below these settings, there are dropdowns for selecting the tap action and hold action. To the right, the dashboard preview shows icons for “Ceiling Lights,” “Bed Light,” “Front Door,” and “Ecobee,” demonstrating how the configured entities will appear in the grid layout.

The Power of Grid Systems in Web Design

Grid systems are foundational to modern web design, enabling developers to create responsive, flexible, and aesthetically pleasing layouts. Many websites use grid systems to ensure their content adjusts smoothly across different screen sizes and devices. Here's how grid systems enhance web design:

  1. Responsive Design: Grids help create layouts that automatically adjust to various screen sizes, from large desktop monitors to small mobile screens. This ensures that websites look good and function well on any device.
  2. Consistency and Alignment: Using a grid system provides a structured framework that ensures consistent spacing and alignment of elements, creating a harmonious and visually appealing design.
  3. Efficiency in Design: Grids simplify the design process by offering a repeatable and scalable system. This reduces the time and effort required to design each new page or section.
  4. User Experience: Well-organized content improves readability and navigation, enhancing the overall user experience. Visitors can find information quickly and easily, which is crucial for retaining their attention.

By incorporating a Grid Card in Home Assistant 0.118, you too can leverage these same principles to create well-structured, responsive dashboards. Whether you’re organizing sensors, cameras, or control buttons, the Grid Card will help maintain a clean and efficient layout, ensuring your Home Assistant interface is both functional and visually appealing.

Monitor Your Home Assistant Log with the Logbook Card

Another new feature in Home Assistant 0.118 is the Logbook Card. This card displays the contents of your Home Assistant log directly on the dashboard, allowing you to monitor specific entities. You can customize which entities to track, and the Logbook Card will only show changes related to those entities, making it a powerful tool for keeping an eye on important system activities.

Dasboard 0 118 07 Edit

Example Use Case for the Logbook Card

Imagine you want to keep a close watch on your home security system and ensure it is functioning correctly. By using the Logbook Card, you can select key entities related to your security setup, such as door sensors, motion detectors, and security cameras. Here’s how you might set it up:

  1. Select Entities to Track: Choose the door sensors for the front and back doors, the motion detectors in your living room and hallway, and your primary security camera.
  2. Customize the Logbook Card: Configure the Logbook Card to display only events related to these selected entities.
  3. Monitor Activity: The Logbook Card will now show real-time updates whenever one of the tracked entities detects activity. For example, if the front door opens, the log will display a timestamped entry indicating the door sensor was triggered.

This setup allows you to quickly see and respond to important security events without sifting through unrelated log entries. Whether you're at home or away, you can have peace of mind knowing that your security system's key activities are easily accessible and monitored from your Home Assistant dashboard.

Enhancements to the Calendar Card

While the Calendar Card isn't new, it receives significant improvements in Home Assistant 0.118. The list view now displays events from today through the next seven days, acting more like an agenda. Previously, it showed the entire week, including past appointments.

Additionally, the calendar panel in the Home Assistant menu now retains selected and unselected calendars when you refresh the page. This change is saved to the local browser storage, so it won't persist across different devices, but it offers a more convenient experience for managing your calendar within Home Assistant.

Expanded Quick Bar Functionality

The Quick Bar in Home Assistant 0.118 has been expanded to include more commands, enhancing navigation for users who prefer keyboard shortcuts. By pressing C on your keyboard, you can bring up a command list to quickly navigate to different parts of the Home Assistant dashboard, making the interface more user-friendly and efficient.

Quick Bar interface in Home Assistant 0.118 displaying a list of navigation options. The commands listed include “Navigate To Areas Configuration,” “Navigate To Automations Configuration,” “Navigate To Calendar,” “Navigate To Cast Dashboard,” “Navigate To Configuration,” “Navigate To Customizations Configuration,” “Navigate To Developer Tools,” and “Navigate To Devices Configuration.” The Quick Bar is designed to enhance navigation efficiency by allowing users to quickly access various parts of the Home Assistant dashboard using keyboard shortcuts. A cursor is shown pointing at the “Navigate To Calendar” option.

Home Assistant 0.118 introduces a new header and footer editor, allowing you to easily add headers and footers to your cards. You can choose between a graph, buttons, or an image. For example, you could add an image as the header of an Entities Card and a graph as the footer. This feature makes it possible to customize cards without needing to write any code.

Dasboard 0 118 01
Home Assistant dashboard card displaying a background image of a person wearing a hat and a Home Assistant t-shirt, leaning against a wall with posters. Below the image, various sensor data is shown, including “Random Sensor” with a value of 13 nums, “Brightness” at 0%, “OpenWeatherMap Weather” showing mist, and date and time inputs labelled “Input with only date” and “Input with only time” set to 00:00. The interface includes an “Edit” option at the bottom, allowing further customization of the card's content and layout.

Other Notable Changes

Version 0.118 also includes the option to display the last time an entity was updated on the dashboard and a new, more user-friendly date picker. These enhancements contribute to a smoother and more informative user experience.

For a detailed look at everything new in the Home Assistant 0.118 dashboard, check out Zack Barett's YouTube video.

A portrait photo oif Liam Alexander Colman, the author, creator, and owner of Home Assistant Guide wearing a suit.

About Liam Alexander Colman

is an experienced Home Assistant user who has been utilizing the platform for a variety of projects over an extended period. His journey began with a Raspberry Pi, which quickly grew to three Raspberry Pis and eventually a full-fledged server. Liam's current operating system of choice is Unraid, with Home Assistant comfortably running in a Docker container.
With a deep understanding of the intricacies of Home Assistant, Liam has an impressive setup, consisting of various Zigbee devices, and seamless integrations with existing products such as his Android TV box. For those interested in learning more about Liam's experience with Home Assistant, he shares his insights on how he first started using the platform and his subsequent journey.

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