How to upgrade? raspberrypi4-homeassistant is stuck at version 2023.7.0

Published by Oliver on

If you are using the raspberrypi4-homeassistant Docker images you might have noticed that no newer versions are added anymore. Here is why that is happening and how you can easily still upgrade to the latest version.

Docker image sources for Home Assistant

There are a couple of different ways to installing Home Assistant, like a native installation, the full Home Assistant Operating System and the way I am using: Docker containers. On my smart home server running on a Raspberry Pi 4 I decided to use the most flexible yet simple solution and go with docker-compose.

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You can always find my newest setup over at Github. In that setup I have always used image: homeassistant/raspberrypi4-homeassistant to run my Home Assistant server. Recently I wanted to upgrade again but noticed that these images seem to be stuck at the July 2023 version.

Why there are no newer images of the raspberrypi4-homeassistant

The reason for this can be found, also a bit hidden, in the release notes for the same July 2023 version. Just have a look at the breaking changes.

Here the Home Assistant team writes that those images were “internal, intermediate, platform build image” not supposed to be widely used. I am not sure why these were published (and even recommended in many places on the Internet, which is how I found them) but now there is a better solution.

Which Home Assistant images should you use on a Raspberry Pi?

Instead of using the former specific images the generic official ones now all support multiple platforms including the Pi(s). If you want to stick with homeassistant/home-assistant:stable. Instead you can also use the recommended official images at Github: ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:stable.

Of course these will also support the usual versions. In my case the switch was super easy by updating the smarthome.yml file like this:

-    image: homeassistant/raspberrypi4-homeassistant:2023.5.4
+    image: ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:2023.9.2

This will jump from the May version to a September version of Home Assistant and works flawlessly. No additional work is needed, no data lost.

I hope this will help you quickly updating if you run into the same issue!

Categories: HomeAssistantSoftware