When I wrote about the Home Assistant 2025.3 release last week, it was pointed out to me that ESPHome firmware had its own release on February 19th, and in other Smart Home news, Home Assistant got Matter certified, and some ChromeCast devices temporarily stopped working which impacted video/audio streaming and integration with Google Home. Let’s have a quick look at all three pieces of news.
ESPHome 2025.2.0 firmware
ESPHome 2025.2.0 was released on February 19 implements audio components improvements with support for new components/hardware for better support of Espressif’s S3-Box products, new speaker components for advanced functionality when using Voice Assistant, a new speaker media player component for announcements and music streams, and a mixer speaker component to combine the two streams.
The new release also supports alpha-blending images when using LVGL, and the Online Image Component was updated to add support for both BMP and JPEG image formats. It also updates ESP32 RMT (Remote Control), and changes the ILI9xxx TFT LCD Series component where users now need to explicitly select 8-bit mode with the color_palette configuration variable if required.
The ESP32Home 2025.2.0 also had some cleanups with the removal of the Armv7 architecture, custom components (deprecated last year), and potentially more importantly the “old style” platform configuration. That means you may have to update your configuration if you haven’t changed it for a few years.
You’ll find the full changelog on the ESPHome website.
Home Assistant’s Matter Certification
The Matter protocol, designed to improve/enable interoperability between Smart Home solutions from different vendors, is gaining traction. Home Assistant has now become the first open-source project to receive an official certification from the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA). It applies to Home Assistant and the Open Home Foundation Matter Server.
More details may be found in the announcement and on the certification page on the CSA website.
Some Chromecast devices stopped working due to an expired certificate
People noticed that Chromecast Audio and 2nd-gen Chromecast video all stopped working due to expired certificate. This is a global issue as reported by 9to5google.com and Android Police, and it does not affect newer streaming devices like the Chromecast with Google TV, Chromecast Ultra, and Google TV Streamer. It’s been reported on Reddit about 2 days ago and recent comments imply is still haven’t be resolved. A workaround is to change the date and time on the device so it does not detect the TLS certificate as being expired.
This highlights the benefits of having devices with offline mode that can work within the user’s home network rather than relying exclusively on cloud services.
Thanks to Hedda for the tips.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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