Updates and recovery

Updating a panel

From Home Assistant. Each panel has an update entity. When a newer version is published the entity offers it, and installing is a button press; Panel Assistant installs the update and confirms the panel came back healthy. This is the route to use.

An update starts when Panel Assistant or you explicitly request it. The panel app does not install scheduled updates. Its web interface’s Install tab also lets you choose and install a panel-app version or a separate Home Assistant app version, including a pre-release. That choice applies to the installation you start; there is no saved update channel.

Android System WebView is maintained separately, through the Play Store, vendor firmware or a manual installation as appropriate for your panel. See updating the system WebView.

Panels that need ADB

When you install an update from Home Assistant, Panel Assistant uses ADB automatically for panels that cannot install the update themselves. If the panel accepts the connection without an on-screen tap, your original consent to install Panel Assistant also covers creating and storing an ADB key for future updates. If the panel requires approval on its screen, Home Assistant raises a Repair that names the panel and starts authorization. Follow the Repair to approve the prompt on that panel.

A panel that cannot be updated

Some panels can only be updated over ADB, because they have no way to install an app themselves. On those, ADB is not a convenience: it is the whole update path, and if it stops working the panel keeps running normally while quietly staying on the version it has. Home Assistant shows a Repair naming the panel when this happens.

The usual cause is a change made on the panel rather than in Home Assistant. A vendor firmware update, a factory reset, or a vendor option that restores the shipped software can all switch Android’s developer options back off, and that takes ADB with it. Nothing warns you at the time, because from the panel’s point of view nothing is wrong.

Turning developer options and USB debugging back on restores the update path, and the steps are the same ones used when first preparing that panel: see prepare a panel. Panels differ in how those settings are reached, and some vendors hide them behind a sequence of taps on an About screen.

What an update protects

Panel Assistant checks the panel before it changes anything and backs up the panel’s settings before each update, keeping the last five backups for each panel.

Before a change you are unsure about, make a backup yourself: on the panel’s web interface, open Install, then Backup, and keep the downloaded .hpb file.

Recovery

A dashboard that will not load after an update is usually the system WebView or the dashboard itself, and the panel has its own startup and recovery behaviour for that. Troubleshooting covers the usual causes. Going back to an earlier release is not something the documentation currently describes, so treat a configuration export as your way back.

Recovery below the app is a different matter. Panel Assistant never touches a panel’s firmware, but some rooted panels can have their firmware partitions backed up and restored by hand, and that is documented in firmware backup and restore.

Danger

Firmware restore is experimental and has not been tested against a bricked device. Treat partition-level work on a panel as something that can leave it unusable, and read that document in full before starting.