The new Home Assistant 2025.12 features are finally here, and it feels like an early Christmas gift. The last release of the year has arrived bringing us visual treats like falling snow, real-time energy graphs, and a new “Labs” section.
But beware: amidst the festive cheer, there is a significant breaking change regarding templates that you must address. Let’s dive into the best Home Assistant 2025.12 features and how to get the most out of this update.
🧪 Introducing Home Assistant Labs
The star of this release is undoubtedly Home Assistant Labs. This is a new dedicated section in the system settings where you can enable experimental features that are stable enough to test but not yet ready for everyone.
❄️ Winter Mode (Let it Snow!)
The first feature available in Labs is purely for fun. By enabling Winter Mode, your dashboards will be covered in falling digital snowflakes. It is the perfect way to get into the holiday spirit!
- How to enable it: Go to Settings > System > Labs and toggle “Winter Mode”.
🧠 Purpose-Specific Triggers
Labs also introduces a more intuitive way to create automations. Instead of dealing with numeric states, you can now use human-readable triggers like “When a light turns on” or “If the climate is heating”.
🎨 Dashboard Improvements (Finally!)
We have been asking for this for years, and it is finally here.
- Undo/Redo Buttons: Made a mistake while editing your dashboard? No panic. You can now undo and redo changes directly in the UI editor.
- Reorder Areas & Floors: You can now drag and drop your areas and floors to reorder them manually. No more strictly alphabetical sorting!
- System-wide Default Dashboard: Admins can now set a default dashboard for all users, ensuring a consistent experience for the whole family (though users can still override it in their profile).
⚡ Real-Time Energy & Water
The Energy Dashboard gets a massive upgrade. The graphs now update in real-time, so you can instantly see the impact of turning on the oven or the EV charger. Also, support for downstream water meters has been added, allowing you to track specific water usage (like garden irrigation) separately from your main meter.
⚠️ Critical Warning: The End of Legacy Templates
Now for the serious part. While we enjoy the new features, this version officially deprecates the old platform: template format for sensors and switches. You will likely see yellow repair warnings after updating.
If you don’t fix this, your sensors will stop working in future versions. I have written a complete step-by-step guide to help you migrate your code without losing your history data.
👉 MUST READ: How to Fix “Legacy Template Entities Deprecated” (Migration Guide)
Should You Update?
Absolutely. Home Assistant 2025.12 is a polished, feature-rich release that closes the year on a high note. The visual improvements alone make it worth it. Just make sure to check your Repair dashboard and follow my guide to fix those templates!
Happy Holidays and Happy Automating! 🎄✨
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