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HomeAssistant Integration

updates2mqtt represents each component being managed as a MQTT Update entity, and uses MQTT discovery so that HomeAssistant automatically picks up components discovered by Updates2MQTT with zero configuration on HomeAssistant itself.

Configuration

If Home Assistant is already running with MQTT, and the defaults haven’t been changed, then updates2mqtt will likely work as is, so long as its publishing to the same broker.

Any updates that have support for automated install will automatically show in the Home Assistant settings page if the MQTT Integration is installed and automatic discovery is not disabled.

Home Assistant MQTT Integration configuration

The homeassistant default topic prefix matches the default Updates2MQTT config, if its changed in HomeAssistant, then the Updates2MQTT config must be changed to match.

Home Assistant updates in Settings

Device Creation

A Home Assistant device will be created for each Updates2MQTT agent on each server, and Home Assistant will then group all the relevant entities together on this device page. Use device_creation: false in the homeassistant config block if you want to switch off this behaviour, and area if you want to provide a suggested_area for the device.

MQTT Topics

There are 44 separate types of MQTT topic used for HomeAssisstant integration:

  • Config to support auto discovery.
    • A topic is created per component, with a name like homeassistant/update/dockernuc_docker_jellyfin/update/config.
    • This can be disabled in the config file, and the homeassistant topic prefix can also be configured.
  • State to report the current version and the latest version available
    • One topic per component, like updates2mqtt/dockernuc/docker/jellyfin/state.
  • Command to support triggering an update.
    • These will be created on the fly by HomeAssistant when an update is requested
    • Updates2MQTT subscribes to pick up the changes, so you won’t typically see these if browsing MQTT topics.
    • Only one is needed per Updates2MQTT agent, with a name like updates2mqtt/dockernuc/docker
  • JSON Attributes sources extra attributes from the main updates2mqtt discovery topic
    • Switch this behaviour off using extra_attributes flag in HomeAssistant config

If the package supports automated update, then Skip and Install buttons will appear on the Home Assistant interface, and the package can be remotely fetched and the component restarted.

If it doesn’t support automated update, the command_topic won’t be published with the configuration message, unless force_command_topic is set to true in the homeassistant configuration section, this will force the Home Assistant app to show the update, but with a do-nothing Update button.

Verifying it Works

Rather than wait for a container to need an update, you can check right away that Home Assistant has recognized the containers as MQTT Update targets.

From the Entities View, or the Developer Tools, filter the entities by update. If there are lots of other updates (HassOS apps, Zigbee device firmware etc), then pick one of the container names you know.

Home Assistant Entities

More Home Assistant information