Core: Unable to hide 'updater' component

[jwater7]

Home Assistant release with the issue:

0.66.0

Last working Home Assistant release (if known):

Operating environment (Hass.io/Docker/Windows/etc.):

Docker

Component/platform:

updater

Description of problem:
Adding the hidden attribute for updater does not hide the "Update Available" badge from the frontend. This is a problem because it's impossible to start the component (in a docker container, which has a different update procedure) without it showing up on the UI and still be able to use it in automations, different views, or see the state in the developer tools without it shifting everything on the UI down and making it an ugly nuisance. Ideally, it would also be nice to be able to make it available in other views instead of a badge, but this is also not possible.

Problem-relevant configuration.yaml entries and (fill out even if it seems unimportant):

homeassistant:
  customize:
    updater.updater:
      hidden: true
updater:

As a secondary/side, it is also not possible to do something like this either:

group:
  admin_view:
    name: Admin
    icon: mdi:settings
    view: yes
    entities:
      - updater.updater

Traceback (if applicable):

Additional information:

[fabaff]

There are other ways available to determine the current Home Assistant release beside the updater component.

Also, this looks like a feature request, please use the forum for that. Thanks

[jwater7]

Depends on how you look at it I guess. To me, if there's common functionality that you would expect each component to be able to handle (as the documentation suggests), and then it doesn't work, I think most customers would consider that a bug.

By the tone you commented and then just closed this issue down, it feels a little like you're more interested in trimming down the bug count than you are resolving them. It would have been nice if it were at least left open for someone else to pick up and work on if they were interested, but I guess I don't have much I could probably say to convince you to keep it open and discuss it

As a side note, it would have been helpful if the "other ways" were described.

[fanaticDavid]

I agree that this is a bug report, rather than a feature request.

Anyway, FWIW I use a RESTful sensor to track the release of new versions:

- platform: rest
  name: "HA available version"
  resource: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/homeassistant/json
  value_template: '{{ value_json.info.version }}'
  scan_interval: 3600

I combine this with an automation that shows me a persistent notification:

- alias: "Notify when new version is available"
  trigger:
    - platform: state
      entity_id: sensor.ha_available_version
  condition:
    condition: and
    conditions:
      - condition: template
        value_template: "{{ trigger.to_state.state != 'unknown' }}"
      - condition: template
        value_template: "{{ trigger.to_state.state != 'unavailable' }}"
      - condition: template
        value_template: '{{ trigger.to_state.state != states.sensor.ha_installed_version.state }}'
  action:
    - service: script.notify_persistent
      data_template:
        message: "A new version of Home Assistant is available: {{ trigger.to_state.state }}"
        notification_id: "new_version"

sensor.ha_installed_version in the last condition refers to another sensor:

- platform: command_line
  name: "HA installed version"
  command: "/srv/hass_venv/bin/hass --version"
  scan_interval: 3600

I prefer this approach over using the available updater component:

• updater has often seemed unreliable to me, and it has been broken before
• on rare occasions, a new version was released without it actually being available through PyPi (meaning I couldn't upgrade yet), so now I only get notified when a new version is actually available for me to upgrade to

[jwater7]

David, that is super awesome! Thank you for taking the time to write a workaround up, extremely helpful and very much appreciated- I’ll give this a shot.