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Release Notes

What’s new in QuickBars — features, improvements, and fixes by version.

v1.12025-08-25

New Features

  • Experimental — Background Connection. Optionally keeps a persistent WebSocket connection to your Home Assistant instance. When enabled you get:
    • Live state updates in the background (fans, climate states, etc.) without relying on the app’s last known state.
    • Faster QuickBar loading (state is already known when you open it).
    • Home Assistant automations can trigger a QuickBar or open a Camera PIP. Learn how.

    Note: This feature is experimental. It may not work on all Android TV devices (some OEMs may restrict background activity) and could affect performance on some hardware. You can turn it off anytime in the app's settings.

  • Camera PIP. Add camera entities and control:
    • Screen position (any corner)
    • Size (3 presets)
    • Auto-hide timer (15s, 30s, 1m, 5m, never)
    • Show title on PIP
    • Camera Alias (to trigger from HA automations; requires Background Connection)
    • ONLY MJPEG camera streams are supported for now.

    Launch PIP from a QuickBar, a Trigger Key or from a Home Assistant event. Press again to hide.

    Limitations: one PIP stream at a time; only MJPEG camera stream are supported for now. Learn more

  • Experimental - Manual Backup & Restore. Create a single .json file with your QuickBars, Trigger Keys and saved entities(no HA URL or token). You can also try backing up on one device, and restoring on another to avoid setting up twice.

    Note: It's a new feature, and may not work correctly. Please report success/failure experiences. Learn more

  • New QuickBar options.
    • Show current time in the title row.
    • Trigger a QuickBar from a Home Assistant automation (requires Background Connection).
    • Auto-close the QuickBar after actions from selected domains (configurable).
  • Automation entities. New entity type:
    • Execute an automation’s actions directly (bypasses its trigger), or
    • Enable/disable the automation and its triggers. Configurable in Entity Settings.

Improvements

  • Climate cards: unified ‘on’ background color (mode is shown via the icon, not background color).
  • Smoother light brightness/temperature/color controls and climate temperature adjustments.
  • Entity focus border on the QuickBar: clearer white border when focused.
  • Trigger Keys: warning shown to not record risky keys (power, D-pad, etc.).
  • Back press on the main screen now shows “Press Back again to exit” instead of exiting immediately.
  • App menus are more compact and easier to navigate; focused button borders are more visible.

Bug fixes

  • Right after importing a light with extra attributes, the controls now appear immediately on the QuickBar.
  • Fan entity cards no longer appear scrollable; visuals align with other entities.
  • Fixed an Android quirk that could show an extra menu when launching an app from the launcher. (Thanks to @tvdevv from tvQuickActions Pro!)
  • Long-press on a Trigger Key now executes without needing to release first.
  • Other minor bug fixes and performance improvements.

Not changed in this update, but still on my radar

  • Navigation keys get overridden on Nvidia Shield 2019, even without configuring anything that may cause it.
  • When configuring long press to expand an entity, it doesn't work as expected and may trigger an action on a different entity.
  • Some reports on not being able to change entity's name
  • Light entity cards' buttons for control may not be very visible with some background colors
  • Add support to "number" entities
  • Change it so that when a QuickBar is present, and clicking on the same Trigger key - it will do a different action rather than what happens now, which is restore initial key action.
  • Add support for different card sizes inside the QuickBar
v1.02025-08-15

Initial Release

  • Initial release of QuickBars for Home Assistant.

Looking for setup help? See Using the App.