Home Assistant 2025.5 adds per-location backup retention policy and expanded TTS voices

The Home Assistant team has released version 2025.5, introducing several high-impact features and improvements for home automation users. At the top of this update is an overhaul of the backup system, now enabling users to set a backup retention policy for each location. This much-requested capability allows for more granular control and increased confidence in backup management.

For Home Assistant Cloud subscribers, the text-to-speech experience has been expanded. Subscribers now have access to more voice options, including both new variants and styles, widening the scope for personalized home interactions. Device management also benefits from this release. The update streamlines the process of adding new Z-Wave devices, notably by supporting Smart Start QR code scanning for easier pairing. Users can additionally browse network devices detected by Home Assistant through new tools for DHCP, mDNS/ZeroConf, and UPnP/SSDP protocols, giving greater insight into the connected ecosystem.

Several user interface improvements accompany these features. The entity pickers now provide more relevant context, and scripts & automation in YAML can be pasted directly into the interface. Dashboard badge behavior is now configurable, and working with templates in automations and scripts has become smoother. This version also delivers a range of new and updated integrations, along with general refinements and bug fixes.