Companion app for Android: It’s been some time

The House Assistant companion app for Android simply retains getting higher with each launch, and not too long ago, it gained some devoted help to assist speed up its improvement. A number of months in the past, I (Timothy Nibeaudeau, also referred to as @TimoPtr) joined the Open House Basis as our devoted Android developer 🎉.

It’s been over two years, and a whole lot of 1000’s of installs, since we’ve printed a devoted replace for our group on the event of the app, and I’d like to provide you a fast replace on current enhancements and what’s coming subsequent.

Behind the Screens

To start with, all of House Assistant’s official companion apps had been developed by the group of their spare time, with many nonetheless being part-time tasks. It’s unimaginable the work they put into constructing these apps. This offers you not simply the power to view your House Assistant occasion on the go (or round the home) and takes benefit of lots of the sensors obtainable on the machine whereas offering wealthy notifications to customers.

Very spectacular development in installs over time!

The Android app alone has seen over 2,700 contributions! It’s lots of work maintaining with Android variations, new capabilities of House Assistant, and bug fixes. This app doesn’t simply help Android telephones and tablets but in addition gadgets they hook up with, particularly Android Auto, Android Automotive, and Put on OS.

Progress within the hundreds of thousands

They did all this work whereas reaching almost 1.5 million installs, with over 6 million whole installs over time. There are 400,000 each day energetic customers and 1 million month-to-month energetic customers. The cellphone app additionally has a really good 4.3-star score on the Play Retailer and 2,800 stars on GitHub 🤩. This suggestions actually helps us enhance.

It’s been over a 12 months and a half because the Apple companion apps gained a full-time developer with the addition of the wonderful Bruno Pantaleão 😎. Across the similar time as Bruno was employed, we started searching for an Android developer, and let’s say that took a bit longer.

My title is Timothy Nibeaudeau, and as talked about at the beginning, I’m your new devoted Android engineer. As somebody who has been utilizing House Assistant since 2018, I’m enthusiastic about open supply and good dwelling expertise. I’ve been working in software program improvement for almost a decade, growing apps for all types of tasks from medical-grade IoT merchandise to good toothbrushes 🪥.

I’m dedicated to bringing my skills to the challenge, however I can not do it alone. The group is what makes House Assistant particular, and collectively, we will obtain much more. Particularly, I’d wish to thank @dshokouhi, @jpelgrom, and @JBassett for his or her years of labor making this app what it’s right this moment!

I’d additionally wish to thanks! Your help (by subscribing to House Assistant Cloud and shopping for official {hardware}) permits the Open House Basis to rent devoted builders. Devoted builders hold improvement targeted, serving to the group to work collectively in delivering the characteristic they’re enthusiastic about.

Since our final weblog

• Well being Join sensors linked to your Android cellphone have been added, together with coronary heart charge, health knowledge, and glucose ranges (as all the time, you’ve gotten full management over what you share together with your House Assistant occasion, and that knowledge stays native).

• By working with Android natively, Help can now substitute your cellphone’s (or Put on OS gadgets’) assistant.

• Now you can set the House Assistant app as your machine’s default launcher, which is nice for wall panel setups.

• We’ve up to date our widgets to help among the new options, like To-do lists.

• Put on OS has had its Tile capabilities improved and a brand new thermostat tile was added.

• There at the moment are extra Android Auto sensors, like pace and remaining vary.

• An easier strategy to join Wi-Fi appropriate gadgets to your own home community (such because the House Assistant Voice Preview Version) utilizing Improv Wi-Fi over Bluetooth (an open commonplace for connecting gadgets to Wi-Fi utilizing Bluetooth, constructed by the Open House Basis).

• The Z-Wave machine onboarding expertise has been improved with the addition of a QR code scanner.

• We’ve additionally improved the pace and stability of the app.

• It’s now simpler than ever for brand new contributors to leap in and begin serving to with the app (far more on that beneath 👇).

For a full checklist of the app’s capabilities, take a look at our breakdown of the companion apps from the companion documentation.

What’s subsequent for our Android app

In our newest replace of the Android app 2025.7.1, we’ve added a few helpful options. Together with a brand new fundamental invite move, which will likely be shared between Android and iOS, including layer of consistency between our most-used companion apps. The concept is to make it far more seamless so as to add new customers or arrange new gadgets (no have to sort the URL in your Android Automotive machine!).

We’ve additionally made My Hyperlinks work higher. In case you’re unfamiliar with My Hyperlinks, they’re these cool hyperlinks (that anybody could make) that carry you proper to an integration, blueprint, add-on, or settings web page. They’ve all the time labored nice on desktop, however up till not too long ago, they had been a bit clunky to make use of on cell. Now you will get to the hyperlink’s vacation spot with a single click on.

Android has many various display sizes and layouts, and we’re working to higher leverage them with edge-to-edge help. Our current replace has edge-to-edge engaged on Android native UI components just like the settings web page, and we’re trying to implement them elsewhere in future updates so we will profit from your display actual property.

Essential adjustments for Android customers

One vital change on the horizon is ending help for Android 5.0 and 5.1 (also referred to as Android Lollipop, launched in 2014… it had run 🫡). Google has introduced that beginning in June 2025, many AndroidX libraries would require a minimal of Android 6.0 (API 23). Google has already up to date Firebase Cloud Messaging to require this as properly. This implies we might want to cease supporting Android 5.0 and 5.1 (API 21 and 22) to maintain up with new options and safety updates. Lower than 0.3% of installs are on Android variations beneath API 23 (Android 6.0), and we all the time work to maintain older gadgets working, however typically our hand is compelled. In case you are utilizing an older machine, the app is not going to be eliminated, however you’ll not obtain new updates as soon as we make this alteration. We plan to make one closing launch for these older variations earlier than help ends. This launch is anticipated earlier than the top of the summer season, so you’ll have the most recent updates obtainable in your machine earlier than we transfer on.

Let’s work collectively

We wish to make it simpler so that you can contribute, whether or not you’re a seasoned developer or simply getting began. This contains making the contribution journey smoother and giving folks a simple place to begin. We’ve even compiled a listing of “first points” to deal with for potential builders trying to assist out. We’ve began work on devoted Android developer documentation, which can give in-depth details about the internal workings of this app.

We’ve made many behind-the-scenes adjustments to enhance the developer expertise (defining greatest practices, linters for quicker/automated suggestions, and steady integration for faster suggestions on PRs). Our focus is all the time on enhancing stability, lowering crash charges, and catching points early. One instance of that is our new fail-fast strategy, which has already helped us catch and repair points early.

We wish extra Android native/unique options whereas additionally balancing the necessity to hold parity between the Android and iOS companion apps (the iOS app is great, and every app’s group is studying a lot from one another).

How one can assist

Thanks once more for making all this attainable. I look ahead to your assist making this app much more wonderful!