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THE SOTH JOURNAL

ESPHome

Ideas, know-how, and a little inspiration for your connected home.

WORTH A CLOSER LOOK

ESPHome

ESPHome's ESPectre Wi-Fi motion sensing gets live threshold, detection and on/off controls, no reflash needed

ESPectre, the component that turns an ESP32 and an ordinary Wi-Fi access point into a motion sensor, can now be tuned from Home Assistant while it runs. Francesco Pace's pull request was merged into the ESPHome dev branch on 2 November 2026 (just after midnight Warsaw time), with the documentation update merged alongside it. It is not in a stable r
Nov 2, 2026
3
min read

ESPHome adds the Hi-Link LD6004, a 60 GHz radar that tracks up to three people in 3D

ESPHome has native support for the Hi-Link HLK-LD6004, a 60 GHz presence radar that reports the position of each person it sees, not just whether a room is occupied. The seven pull requests by Rick van Hattem (wolph), reviewed by J. Nick Koston (bdraco), were merged into the dev branch early on 31 October 2026, between 04:05 and 06:45 Warsaw time.
Nov 1, 2026
3
min read

Music Assistant 2.10.9 pairs ESPHome Sendspin speakers through Home Assistant 2026.11 without a pasted token, and fixes a long list of Snapcast bugs

Music Assistant 2.10.9 came out on 30 October 2026. The headline change removes a chore that ESPHome 2026.10.0 introduced: since that release, Sendspin connections are encrypted, and each ESPHome speaker had to be paired with Music Assistant by pasting a pairing token. With 2.10.9 and Home Assistant 2026.11, Music Assistant can do the pairing itsel
Oct 30, 2026
2
min read

CVE-2026-59177: the ESPHome add-on once exposed its dashboard to the whole LAN without a password, and ESPHome 2026.6.1 or newer is safe

The National Vulnerability Database published CVE-2026-59177 on October 28, 2026. It covers a flaw in ESPHome Device Builder, the dashboard behind the ESPHome add-on for Home Assistant, which let any device on the local network open the dashboard with no credentials. The bug is not new. ESPHome fixed it in June and published the advisory (GHSA-vv4j
Oct 29, 2026
3
min read

ESPHome's VNC client gains touchscreen control and password support, so a wall panel can operate the dashboard it shows

When ESPHome merged its vnc component on 22 October, the first version had two clear gaps: it was view-only, and it could only connect to VNC servers with no password. Both are now closed in the development branch. Petar Petrov's pull request adding input actions and touchscreen forwarding was merged on 26 October 2026 (23:48 Polish time), and his
Oct 28, 2026
3
min read

ESPHome can now update a finished device over the network with just a firmware file and an IP address

A pull request merged into ESPHome's development branch on 28 October 2026 (01:48 Polish time) lets esphome upload send a prebuilt firmware image to a device without a YAML configuration. The change is by Nate Clark and was reviewed by J. Nick Koston (bdraco). It targets a group ESPHome rarely served well from the command line: owners of finished p
Oct 28, 2026
3
min read