Back in September, I announced that energy monitoring was coming to Gladys. Today, I'm thrilled to announce that it's officially live in Gladys Assistant 4.66! 🎉

Energy Monitoring​

• Track your consumption in kWh and euros with precision matching your energy provider
• Support for multiple rate types: basic, peak/off-peak hours, and EDF Tempo
• Historical rate management: because prices change over time
• Beautiful dashboard widget to visualize your consumption by day, month, or year
• Compatible with Zigbee devices, MQTT sensors, and the Enedis integration

To use this feature, update to Gladys 4.66 and check out the full documentation:

👉 Energy Monitoring Documentation

MCP Server: History Support​

The MCP server now supports querying device history! Your AI assistant can now answer questions like "What was the temperature in the living room yesterday?" or "Show me my energy consumption for the past week."

Zigbee2mqtt 2.7.1​

We've upgraded Zigbee2mqtt from 2.6.1 to 2.7.1, featuring the brand new Windfront frontend for a more modern and responsive interface. Check out the full changelog for all improvements.

Thank you​

A huge thank you to Thomas Lemaistre (@Terdious) who funded this development and made it possible!

If you have questions or feedback, feel free to post on the forum.

At the end of May, I was chatting with Thomas Lemaistre (@Terdious on the forum), and he was explaining his electrical setup: multiple meters, solar panels, an electric car... and soon batteries to store his energy.

His goal in Gladys:

👉 Track his consumption directly in euros
👉 Visualize the different energy flows in his home
👉 Measure the performance of his solar panels
👉 And most importantly, know how close he is to energy self-sufficiency 🌞🔋

I've been dreaming about these kinds of features for Gladys for a long time 😍 But it's a big project, difficult to start without funding.

In June, @Terdious offered to finance the development himself. Just like that! 🎉

He prepared a detailed specification, I proposed a quote, he accepted... and I was able to start this project this summer.

Today, I'm super happy to reveal the first part of this development!

What has been developed so far​

Configuration​

A brand new integration has appeared in Gladys: "Energy Monitoring" 🎉

This is where you'll find all options related to energy monitoring in Gladys.

In the first tab, you can define the layout of your electrical installation by organizing your devices hierarchically. This allows Gladys to understand how electricity flows in your home.

👉 Next, you can enter your electricity rates. And a major new feature: Gladys also manages rate history! Because unlike other home automation software, we all know that prices change over the years... and your calculations need to reflect reality, year after year.

For now, entry is manual, but automatic import is already planned.

3 types of contracts are already supported:

• Basic rate
• Peak/Off-peak hours
• EDF Tempo

The first two are completely generic, so they can be used anywhere in the world. An American user with a peak/off-peak contract, for example, can use it without any problem.

My ambition is clear: I want Gladys calculations to be as precise as those of your energy provider. Down to the cent.

No approximations: reliability is key.

That's actually where most of the work was: implementing an ultra-precise calculation engine. I've done tests with my own EDF Tempo contract, and the results match exactly with the values on the EDF portal ✅

And good news: this integration is compatible both with data from the Enedis integration (via Gladys Plus) and with any custom consumption source:

• a Zigbee plug,
• an MQTT sensor,
• or any other measurement you send to Gladys.

📊 Dashboard​

I've added an "Energy Monitoring" widget.

It allows you to visualize your consumption by year, month, or day at a glance.

And this is just the beginning: more widgets will enhance the monitoring.

What's next​

This is where I need your help:

I'm looking for users willing to help me test the algorithm.

Specifically: if you agree to share with me in a private message on the forum your consumption data, I can compare it with Gladys calculations and ensure the results match perfectly.

The goal: quickly release a first beta of energy monitoring in Gladys, before moving on to the other features requested by @Terdious.

Thank you Thomas​

I want to thank @Terdious enormously, without whom this development simply wouldn't have happened. It's thanks to his funding that I was able to start this project, and I think the entire community can say a big THANK YOU to him 🙌

And for those who sometimes wonder why certain requests aren't implemented quickly: it's never a question of unwillingness, but of resources. I work on Gladys according to the available funding, and contributions like this are a huge accelerator for the project 🚀

Today, I'm very happy to release Gladys Assistant 4.58, which brings Matter support, but that's far from being the only interesting thing in this version 😄

Matter Integration​

As I mentioned in my 2024 year in review, I'm convinced that Matter is a small revolution in the world of smart homes, and a revolution that will have an extremely positive impact for Gladys.

This protocol is open, works entirely locally, and finally allows us to have a common language between devices from various brands.

No more proprietary protocols, no more third-party applications, no more cloud APIs, no more data going to third-party servers 😎

I say this protocol is open because anyone can create a Matter device, even DIY.

There is, for example, an excellent open source project, Matterbridge, which aims to connect non-Matter compatible devices to a Matter network. This project allows, for example, Shelly, Somfy Tahoma, Zigbee2MQTT, Home Assistant devices, and more to be compatible with Matter.

Thanks to this project, all these devices become de facto compatible with Gladys Assistant!

For those of you who have unusual devices, it's even possible to code a small Matterbridge plugin to add Matter support to your device, and thus easily integrate it into Gladys Assistant.

Anyway, this integration is now available:

My goal is to cover 100% of Matter devices, and I welcome your feedback so we can achieve this.

To get started with the Matter integration, you can follow this tutorial:

👉 Integrate Matter devices in Gladys Assistant

Gauge Widget on the Dashboard​

You can now add a "Gauge" widget to your dashboard, useful for visualizing the fill rate of a tank, the battery level of a device, and much more!

Improved "Charts" Widget​

The "Charts" widget now supports custom aggregation functions:

As well as grouping by interval: hour, day, week, month, year:

These improvements will allow you to better visualize your data, for example:

• Display the cumulative precipitation per day
• Display the monthly sum of electricity consumption
• Display the number of sensor values received per week
• Display the minimum value of battery per day of your battery storage

The possibilities are endless!

The "Wait" Scene Action Supports Dynamic Values​

It is now possible to inject variables and perform calculations in the "Wait" block.

For example, if you want to wait between 5 and 30 minutes randomly, you can use this function:

Super useful for simulating presence!

It's also possible to inject a variable from a sensor, or even from Gladys AI...

Get the Result of an AI Query​

In scenes, you can use our "Ask AI" block to ask a question to the artificial intelligence and get an opinion on a situation.

This is the true "proactive AI" we've all dreamed of!

For example, this action allows you to identify a car in a camera image, or analyze a sensor value, without you needing to intervene.

The AI's response is now injected into a scene variable, usable in all other blocks, for example, to speak on a speaker:

Gladys Update Notification​

From now on, Gladys will send you a notification when it has just updated.

The notification is sent to Gladys administrators, in their language, through their configured communication methods: Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal, or NextCloud Talk.

Alarm: Partial Arming Now Locks Your Tablets​

If you use the alarm in Gladys, and you activate partial arming at night or during a daytime nap, know that it now locks all tablets in the house, to prevent a potential intruder from accessing your home automation during your sleep!

Specifically, as soon as the "Partial Arming" mode is activated, all tablets in the house will have this display to protect your installation:

Zigbee2MQTT: Support for the Tuya ME201WZ Level Sensor​

If you want to measure the level of a tank in real-time, and receive alerts when the level is too low or too high, you can now use the Tuya ME201WZ Zigbee sensor, which is fully supported by Gladys 🙂

ZWaveJS: Energy Measurement Support​

Devices that support energy measurements, such as the ZW075 AEON Labs Smart Switch Gen5, are now supported by our ZWave integration, based on ZWaveJS.

Thanks to @Sescandell for the development!

And That's Not All!​

This version brings many other improvements, including:

• HomeKit: limiting accessory names to a maximum of 64 characters (compliance with specifications). Thanks to @bertrandda for the development 🙏
• MQTT & Zigbee2MQTT: improved search performance on the devices page.
• Scenes:
  • Ability to delete the first condition in a group of multiple conditions.
  • New bottom bar to save and test a scene + confirmation before deletion. Thanks to @cicoub13 🙏
  • Added a button to insert an action group.
  • Filters are now preserved after deleting a scene.
• Dashboard:
  • Added a button to insert a widget at a specific position.
  • Display of "non-sensor" but non-controllable MQTT devices as sensors.
  • Fixed display of MQTT placeholders in scenes.
  • The lighting control widget only appears if there are more than two lights.
• Local Websockets: fixed a bug causing visual flickering on the dashboard.

The complete CHANGELOG is available on GitHub.

Thanks to all the contributors, and to all the testers who helped me a lot for this release, especially @mutmut, who helped me enormously with Matter support.

How to Update?​

Gladys will automatically update if you use Watchtower.

Otherwise, you can use our new button to update Gladys in one click:

This button has been available since Gladys Assistant v4.57 in the Settings → System tab.

Want to Get Started with Gladys?​

If you're a beginner and looking for a simple and complete solution, I've designed an ideal kit to get started smoothly:

• A powerful mini-PC: 4 cores, 8/16 GB RAM, 256/500 GB SSD
• Access to a complete training where I show you my setup step by step
• One year subscription to Gladys Plus, with automatic backups, encrypted remote access, and more

All starting at 165.98€, for now only shipping in France. (Ping me if you want shipping to another country!)

By choosing this kit, you save time, support an open-source project, and enjoy a solution designed to last 😎

See you soon on Gladys! 👋

Pierre-Gilles

"If... Then... Else" Condition in Scenes​

One of the most anticipated features is finally here!

You can now add "If... Then... Else" conditions to your scenes, allowing you to create advanced scenarios with multiple execution paths. This enhancement gives you finer control over your automations without needing to create multiple scenes.

Example Use Cases:​

• If the temperature exceeds 25°C, then turn on the fan, else close the blinds.
• If someone is home, then turn on the lights, else activate away mode.

I'm looking forward to seeing how you use this feature!

Send Messages to WhatsApp and Signal with CallMeBot​

Want to receive alerts directly on WhatsApp or Signal?

Now you can, thanks to the CallMeBot integration!

You can send instant notifications to these platforms to stay informed in real-time about events in your home.

Perfect for receiving an alert in case of an intrusion or a water leak!

Other Improvements​

• Improved camera image quality: Resolution increased to 1280px for sharper display on the dashboard and in Telegram messages.
• Fixed missing units on dashboard charts: When editing a chart, device feature units are now correctly displayed. If your charts are missing units, try deselecting and reselecting the features. Apologies for the inconvenience 🙏
• German users are now redirected to the English documentation for better accessibility.

Update Now!​

This version brings even more flexibility and power to Gladys Assistant.

If you're using WatchTower, Gladys will update automatically within the next 24 hours.

I hope you had an excellent 2024.

For Gladys, 2024 was a pivotal year, marked by personal changes that allowed Gladys to develop to its full potential!

Indeed, I moved into an apartment fully automated with Gladys. It has become a real showcase of the work we've done and allowed me to record dozens of tutorials on smart home technology.

What happened in 2024?​

2024 was an incredibly active year:

• 27 Gladys releases (about one every two weeks)
• Filming and launching a complete smart home training course (41 videos/articles currently available)
• Launching a starter kit including hardware

Development​

Several major features were delivered this year:

• Migration to DuckDB, reducing storage usage by up to 97%
• Integration of Z-Wave JS, Netatmo, Sonos, Free Mobile, Airplay, and more
• Support for EDF Tempo
• External support for Zigbee2mqtt
• AI: Voice integration with speakers (Sonos, Google Home, HomePod)
• AI: ChatGPT 4.0 and proactive AI in scenes

Usage​

The start of 2024 saw a significant increase in new installations compared to 2023:

The end of the year was quieter, and it’s hard to say whether this decrease in activity is due to my own slower pace — I was traveling in September/October and then on Christmas holidays at the end of the year — or if it was simply a period when everyone was generally less available. In any case, these variations are normal: there are always ups and downs 😄

Revenue​

In total, Gladys Plus generated €17,428 in revenue in 2024, a +105.8% growth compared to 2023. This growth was mainly driven by the launch of the starter kit.

Gladys Plus now has an MRR of €874, a +18.15% increase from last year.

These results validate our strategic choices for Gladys, and I plan to continue on this path in 2025.

The YouTube Channel​

This year, the YouTube channel experienced a slight drop in views, as I didn’t publish any videos in the second half of the year.

Working part-time on Gladys, I had to prioritize between development, support, documentation, filming the training course, and the starter kit. Pausing YouTube was a strategic decision, and the results confirm it. 😄

In 2025, I plan to revive the channel to attract new users. Perhaps we could organize more live coding sessions?

Here are a few videos published in 2024:

Social Media​

On social media:

• Gladys Assistant Twitter: 2,680 followers
• Gladys Assistant Facebook: 759 likes
• Gladys Assistant Instagram: 580 followers

On my personal account: 2,354 followers on Twitter.

The Newsletter​

There are 3,187 subscribers to the Gladys Assistant newsletter, broken down as follows:

• 2,647 French subscribers
• 540 English subscribers

Although the French subscriber base slightly decreased, the English newsletter is growing. I also enhanced the use of this communication tool in 2024.

Gladys Assistant GitHub​

The Gladys Assistant GitHub repository now has 2,743 stars ⭐, a +12.88% increase.

Don’t forget to support the project by giving it a ⭐ if you haven’t already!

Projects and Goals for 2025

Matter Integration​

The Matter ecosystem is becoming increasingly mature: high-quality devices are entering the market, and libraries are being developed.

On the Node.js side, the official Matter library is now available, which will allow us to build Matter compatibility.

I have a very positive view of Matter: it could finally be the unified smart home protocol I’ve been dreaming of since the project began.

I believe that in the long term, Matter might become the only protocol, creating a larger gap between different smart home software.

Currently, platforms like Home Assistant have a significant advantage due to the number of integrations, but this would diminish if Matter became the sole protocol.

If the "communication" layer were standardized with Matter, the user experience would be the main differentiator between platforms...

Which brings me to the second point:

UX Improvements​

I regularly perform "UX reviews" on Gladys, asking you: are there small issues in Gladys that bother you daily and would change your life if fixed?

Each small change incrementally improves the product, and all these changes combined make Gladys increasingly user-friendly.

In 2025, I aim to do significant work on UX to take Gladys to the next level of simplicity.

Even More AI​

If 2024 was undoubtedly the year of AI, I believe this trend will continue in 2025.

I will keep following the latest advancements in AI to bring the best to Gladys.

The goal remains the same: to make Gladys the intelligent assistant for your home.

North American Expansion​

The international Gladys forum grew significantly in 2024.

In terms of installations, 12% of new installations now come from the US, and 7% from Canada.

I believe the North American market should be my next focus. It’s a massive market (491 million people) with a strong tech-savvy audience. There are also many developers who could become contributors and help us move forward.

To target this market, here are some steps:

• Develop compatibility with the devices they use (hence the Matter development!).
• Communicate on platforms they frequent (Reddit, X?).
• Connect with local influencers.

If you have ideas, I’d love to hear them! 😄
We even have a passionate user living in Canada who can help us better understand this market. (Hi @lmilcent 👋)

A More Affordable Starter Kit?​

The 2024 starter kit was a hit, but I’d love to offer an even cheaper kit.

The challenge is that at €259, it’s already hard to lower the price unless suppliers reduce their costs occasionally.

One idea could be to offer a kit based on a less powerful mini-PC, reducing the cost. I’m considering the non-pro version of the Beelink S12, featuring 8 GB of RAM, 256 GB of SSD, and an Intel N95 CPU.

Would a less powerful but more affordable kit interest you? 😄

Feature Suggestions?​

If you have ideas or requests for new features, feel free to propose them on the forum!

Happy New Year, and Thanks to All!

Thank you to everyone supporting Gladys, whether through help on the forum, subscribing to Gladys Plus, or purchasing the starter kit.

I hope 2025 will be as fantastic as 2024! 🚀

Pierre-Gilles Leymarie

Today, I’m excited to introduce Gladys Assistant 4.48, a version where artificial intelligence is even more deeply integrated into Gladys to make your home smarter and more responsive.

Since January 2023, you could already ask ChatGPT questions through Gladys.

That was a good start, but I want to take it further! What if AI could be proactive and make decisions for you?

Imagine the possibilities​

Imagine a car pulls up in front of your house. A dedicated security guard would watch, recognize your car—its shape, color, license plate—and know immediately that it’s you. But hiring a 24/7 guard isn’t within reach for everyone!

What if AI could play that role?

In Gladys, you can now write a simple instruction, for example:

“If a car is in front of the house, and it’s a red Tesla Model 3 with the license plate XXX, turn on the garage; otherwise, alert me that there’s an intruder.”

With Gladys 4.48, this scenario becomes a reality! You have a generalist AI ready to monitor and make decisions, just like a dedicated agent, but without the cost.

A concrete example​

This new feature is based on the OpenAI ChatGPT 4o-mini API, with its latest vision feature available to Gladys Plus subscribers.

In a scene, you can create an “Ask AI” action and, if desired, send it an image from a camera.

Take the car example:

If movement is detected outside your house, Gladys will send the garage camera image to analyze the situation. Then, based on detection:

• If the correct car is recognized, the garage light turns on.
• If another car is detected, you receive an intruder alert on your phone.

Analyzing sensor values​

The camera is just one example! You can also send sensor data to the AI and ask it to act based on the results.

For instance, you could send a CO2 sensor value and request an action if the level is abnormal:

No need to look up recommended CO2 levels in a room—the AI draws on its extensive knowledge (essentially all of the internet!) to assess the situation and act intelligently.

It’s even possible to inject values retrieved from other APIs to:

• Get a weather report first thing in the morning
• Track financial markets with a stock summary
• Check the news with an RSS feed
• Verify home security each day during your vacation (normal temperature, etc.)

The possibilities are endless! I can’t wait to see what you’ll create with this update. Share your trials on the forum to inspire others!

Other updates​

• In scenes, filters by tag or title are now saved in the URL, so you can easily return to a filter after navigating.
• Added support for pilot wire heaters in scenes.
• Camera images are now retrieved via TCP (instead of UDP), avoiding display errors (like the green band bug).
• Fixed binary charts: the first value now displays correctly.
• DuckDB: connections are now properly closed when Gladys shuts down.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this update! 🙌

How to update?​

Make sure to use Watchtower for automatic updates. Check the documentation.

With Watchtower, Gladys will update automatically.

Today is a big day: I’m releasing a major version of Gladys that will drastically improve the Gladys experience and keep us at the cutting edge of data storage technology.

Imagine...

➡️ Your Gladys database shrinking from 47 GB to 1.5 GB...
➡️ Your charts displaying instantly, even over long periods of data...
➡️ Your Gladys Plus backups becoming lighter and faster...

Well, we did it!

The Technology: DuckDB​

DuckDB is an OLAP database system that, like SQLite, stores data in a single file.

If we had to define DuckDB:

DuckDB is an analytical database engine designed to offer optimal performance on large volumes of data while remaining lightweight and easy to integrate. It is particularly suited for embedded data analysis, with native support for complex SQL queries and efficient in-memory processing.

DuckDB, with its OLAP + file approach, is unique in its kind, and I had been monitoring this technology for several years.

Until recently, DuckDB was in alpha and therefore not ready to be used in production on a critical product like Gladys.

But in June, DuckDB finally reached version 1.0, with a clear announcement that the API and file format would no longer undergo major changes, making DuckDB suitable for production use.

Integration into Gladys​

Following the launch of version 1.0, I immediately started development in Gladys and did a YouTube live stream to test the technology with you.

We quickly saw together that the technology was very promising, so I continued development.

In a nutshell, the tasks included:

• Migrating the sensor history currently in SQLite to DuckDB (and if possible, without downtime)
• Setting up an interface to monitor the migration and a way to "clean" the SQLite DB afterward
• Modifying all the code that writes historical sensor values
• Rewriting the dashboard chart display queries
• Reviewing the entire Gladys Plus backup process
• Finally, testing the migration in real-world scenarios to see if DuckDB works well in daily use on real instances.

In short, there was a lot of work to do!

The Result​

On August 6th, I started the "real" tests on my personal Gladys setup.

My instance has about forty devices and has been live since February 2024.

I had a 905 MB database, with 996,000 sensor states, which after migration was reduced to:

Yes, you read that right, my database was reduced to 19 MB! It's almost ridiculous!

For the largest Gladys user, Terdious, with 80 million states for a 47.7 GB database, it was reduced to:

In short, it's quite revolutionary!

For the past 20 days, this new version has been running smoothly on my setup and other Gladys users' setups.

The charts are much faster; Terdious noticed load times twice as fast on his mini-PC.

On his Pi 4, it's even more impressive, with dashboards containing charts now displaying in 150 ms compared to 1 to 5 seconds before.

How Does It Work Under the Hood?​

At this point, you might be thinking: is this magic?

Actually, not really:

• First of all, SQLite is not suited for this use case, so we were forced to store information 4 times in the database: once for the "raw" data, once for monthly aggregated data, once for daily aggregated data, and once for hourly aggregated data. This allowed us to fetch data more quickly from pre-reduced datasets.
• Then, on the SQLite side, I had added very specific indexes to respond to queries like "Show me the values of temperature sensor XX between this morning and now." These multi-column indexes provided good performance but were storage-intensive (again, this is redundancy).
• Finally, DuckDB does an outstanding job. The data is aggressively compressed (If you're interested, there's an article on their blog).

For example, in the case of Gladys, if you have a binary sensor (door open sensor, motion sensor, leak sensor, etc.), the data is just 0s and 1s: there are only 2 possible values.

This kind of dataset is very easy to compress:

How to Update?​

Gladys should normally update automatically if you use Watchtower.

If you installed Gladys with Docker, make sure you're using Watchtower. See the documentation.

If you're impatient and know what you're doing, you can also manually run Watchtower in "one-shot" mode:

docker run --rm \
    -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
    nickfedor/watchtower \
    --run-once

(Don't forget to use sudo if you're running Gladys as an administrator)

Once Gladys is updated to v4.45.0, there are several steps to take before seeing your DB shrink.

The Migration​

As soon as your instance updates, the migration to DuckDB will begin.

At the top of your dashboard, you will see a message:

During this migration, your instance may be slowed down, and your charts will not be available.

You can find the migration status in "Settings → System":

Once the migration is complete, the "Migration completed" line will change from "No" to "Yes."

Take a moment to browse Gladys and check that all your charts look correct.

If everything looks good, you can then purge the SQLite states by clicking the red "Purge SQLite states" button, which will start a task:

During this task, your Gladys instance will be a bit slower, which is normal.

Depending on the number of states in your database and the speed of your disk, this task can take a few hours or even days if you have a large DB.

Gladys remains usable, but slower!

Finally, once this purge is complete, you'll need to clean the SQLite DB so that the file on your disk is finally reduced.

To do this, click on the "Clean database" button:

This task is blocking, and Gladys will not be available during the cleanup.

Finally, once the task is done, restart Gladys.

You're done! You should now have a much smaller database and a much faster Gladys instance!

Conclusion​

I hope this update will bring you the same results as it has for all the testers!

In any case, I'm convinced that this update will revolutionize the use of Gladys, and I welcome your feedback.

Thanks again to all the testers who helped in the development 🙏

Supporting the Project​

There are many ways to support the project:

• Participate in discussions on the forum, help newcomers.
• Contribute to the project by proposing new integrations/features.
• Improve the documentation, which is open source.

Thanks to everyone who supports Gladys 🙏

Today I'm releasing Gladys Assistant 4.40, an update to Gladys that brings a much-requested feature: the ability to use Gladys with an existing Zigbee2mqtt instance.

Using Gladys with an existing Zigbee2mqtt instance​

From now on, when you configure Zigbee2mqtt in Gladys, Gladys will offer you 2 choices:

Either you're a beginner starting from scratch, and Gladys can take care of all the Zigbee2mqtt configuration (that's what Gladys was doing until now).

Or you're an experienced user who already has an existing Zigbee2mqtt installation (for example, if you're using Home Assistant or any other home automation platform), in which case you can connect Gladys to an existing installation.

This second option lets you test Gladys without touching your installation, and you can even use 2 home automation systems at the same time!

That's the power of open-source systems 😊

If you're a user of another home automation solution, I'd love to hear from you: come and test our Zigbee2mqtt integration, and tell us on our forum if there are any devices that aren't yet managed: it's a great help and helps us improve!

Thanks to AlexTrovato for his work on this development 🙌

Philips Hue: “Synchronize bridges” button added​

In Philips Hue integration, in the past if you added a Philips Hue bulb to your bridge while Gladys was already running, Gladys was unaware of this new bulb.

The explanation comes from the library we use, which keeps a cache of available lights because synchronization with the bridge is a costly operation.

From now on, I've added a “Synchronize bridges” button that allows you to retrieve the latest version of the light bulb list in Gladys:

Blink sockets in scenes​

The “Blink lights” scene action now lets you select connected sockets, or any switch, allowing you to blink a light that's connected to a socket.

Be careful, however, not to flicker a traditional light bulb, as it may snap. Only use LEDs!

For example, my bathroom mirror bulb is controlled by a Zigbee switch ZBMINIL2, and therefore appears in this scene action:

Thanks to Cicoub13 for this development 🙌

LAN Manager: timeout increased to 60 seconds​

I've had some feedback that the LAN Manager integration's network scan timeout wasn't sufficient: I've now increased it from 30 seconds to 60 seconds.

How to upgrade?​

If you installed Gladys with the official Raspberry Pi OS image, your instance will update automatically in the coming hours. It can take up to 24 hours, don't panic.

If you installed Gladys with Docker, make sure you are using Watchtower. See the documentation.

With Watchtower, Gladys will update automatically.

Support us​

If you want to support us, there are many ways:

• Answer posts on the forum, give your feedback.
• Help us improve the documentation.
• Develop new features/integrations on Gladys, we are 100% open-source.
• Subscribe to Gladys Plus

I've been wanting to tell you about this project for so long, so here it is at last 😁

For those who missed the launch, the replay is available on YouTube (in French):

Order your training now (French only for now): formation.gladysassistant.com

I'm buying an apartment​

The first news of this launch is that I'm buying an apartment in the south of France: my first main residence!

Obviously, I'm going to connect this apartment entirely with Gladys and make it a real showcase for what's possible in home automation in 2024 😎

I'm going to push the cursors to the max on all subjects: lighting, presence detection, security, music, etc....

The aim of this apartment is also to turn it into a real laboratory for home automation experiments.

This will allow me to be at the forefront in terms of Gladys use, and to be able to test all the new features at home.

I'll show you my personal setup​

For the moment, the apartment is empty.

I'm going to take advantage of this installation to film several episodes in the form of a mini-series where I'll present each part of my installation and explain how to do the same at home:

• Lighting
• Presence detection
• Music
• Connected office
• Sensors
• Connected kitchen
• Security & Safety
• Energy savings

And much more!

The training course is already available for pre-order and will officially start on Friday February 9 at 8pm.

Order yours today (French only for now): formation.gladysassistant.com.

Quite an investment​

For this installation, I invested in a wide variety of home automation equipment, and you'll see it's worth the detour!

• There's some nice lighting, with different price ranges tested
• Room-by-room presence management
• A connected desktop suitable for YouTube live streams (a welcome change from my current setup!)
• A master tablet to control the whole house
• And I'll say no more to avoid spoilers 😇

In terms of the quality of this series, it will be shot mainly with professional equipment:

• SLR camera (Canon EOS 80D)
• Tripod
• RØDE microphone
• DJI stabilizer for moving shots

This series will be shot as the installation progresses, and with your feedback of course!

There will be calls with training members to help you replicate this setup at home at the same time.

Impact on the project​

As I said in the live, we're currently at 711 Gladys installations.

My goal now is to convince the next 10,000 people to join us.

To reach this goal, it's impossible to introduce Gladys to that many people if I have to talk to each person live, so I have to double myself.

In my opinion, offering this training course is the best way of offering my home automation knowledge to thousands of potential users in a single, lively, practical medium.

On a more personal note, having this "base", with an office that I'll be able to equip to do YouTube livestreams, is a huge comfort for me. I'll be able to develop this distribution channel even further!

Conclusion​

Thank you to all those who have followed this launch and who will follow me in this new project.

Every contribution you make by purchasing this training course is a support that will enable Gladys to develop even further.

I can't wait to show you all this!

See you here (french only for now): formation.gladysassistant.com.

Pierre-Gilles Leymarie

I hope 2024 will be a year full of good things for you: health, family, projects!

Like every year, I take stock of the previous year and present my plans for the new year.

If you prefer this review on video, I've made a YouTube live which is available for replay here (in french only).

What happened in 2023?​

2023 was a year rich in new features:

• An integration with OpenAI ChatGPT
• In-dash camera live-streaming
• Compatibility with the Tuya protocol
• Full alarm mode in Gladys
• Sonos integration in Gladys

THANK YOU again to all the developers who have contributed to these releases, 2023 has been an exceptional year and it's all thanks to you 🎉

Thanks to Alexandre Trovato, Vincent Kulak, Bertrand D'Aure, Cyril Beslay, Corentin Allemand, NickDub, Terdious, Romuald Pochet, Quentin Legay, Jonathan Brisavoine, William Deren, Nicolas Geissel, euguuu, Patrick Scheips and Brad Sanders! 🙏

Usage​

In 2O23, the number of new installations was up on 2022, except in February-March, which can be explained by the fact that I was on summer vacation in February-March this year and was therefore not active during this period!

On the contrary, in July-August 2023, I didn't take any vacations, and this is reflected in the number of new installations:

In terms of MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue), Gladys Plus now stands at €750 MRR, an increase of +76% since last year.

Gladys Plus made €8,469 in sales in 2023, an increase of +35%.

I had announced at the end of 2022 that I wanted to make €18k in sales by 2023.

It's a missed target, the main reason being that I wasn't able to release the new product I wanted to launch in 2023, but which therefore arrives at the beginning of 2024... 😎

The YouTube channel​

The YouTube channel continued its 2022 momentum!

19,000 views on the channel, 1800 hours of watch time, it's a great year, but we're doing a little less than in 2022 because I've released fewer videos.

For me, YouTube remains an excellent channel for acquiring new users, which I intend to continue using in 2024.

The live coding at the end of the year was a great success, and something I'll be continuing to do!

Some videos that worked well in 2023 (in french only for now):

• Le trio ULTIME pour automatiser la lumière ??
• Live coding : Une intégration Sonos en une journée ?
• Live coding : Une intégration Z-Wave en une journée ?
• Live : Le mode "Alarme" débarque dans Gladys Assistant 🎉
• Gérez vos appareils Zigbee dans votre domotique avec Zigbee2mqtt et Gladys Assistant

Social networks​

On social networks:

• @gladysassistant on Twitter gathers 2,721 followers
• Gladys Assistant Facebook has 760 likes
• @gladysassistant on instagram has 579 followers

And 2,335 followers on my personal Twitter!

Newsletter​

On the newsletter front, 3,277 of you follow the Gladys Assistant newsletter.

• 2775 subscribers in French
• 502 English subscribers

It's a down year overall. I still use the newsletter as much as ever, but I don't put much emphasis on it. Maybe I'll have to work on this part in 2024!

The Gladys Assistant GitHub​

We're at 2,430 stars ⭐ on the repo Gladys Assistant.

That's +9% compared to last year!

I'm counting on you to support us on GitHub by putting a star ⭐ to the project.

Projects and goals for 2024​

Well, most importantly: what does 2024 have in store for us on Gladys?

Time to scale​

As far as I'm concerned, Gladys Assistant v4 has reached a stage where the product has proved its worth: both in terms of core, and integrations, we have a base that's running with great satisfaction among hundreds of users.

Now we need to get the word out about the product, so that other users can join us.

We need to show the world that yes, Gladys Assistant is a serious connected home solution in 2024.

To do this, I have a very specific plan in mind, which I'll be unveiling as early as February 2024, and it's going to change everything (#teasing!!)

Over the course of 2024, I'll need you, the Gladys community, to talk positively about the project, take initiatives to promote Gladys (presence on social networks, telling friends/family, contacting bloggers/YouTubers) and above all support newcomers to the forum.

I think it's time for a French solution to titillate our great American competitor 😁

On the product side​

On the product side, I've got lots of ideas for 2024, and as always we're going to continue culling feature requests on the forum to satisfy users.

A lot of you are making feature requests on the forum, and the objective remains to cull these requests one by one.

2 short-term goals I have in mind:

• Release Z-Wave JS UI integration and add compatibilities one by one.
• Continue the groundwork on Zigbee2mqtt & Tuya to get as many compatible devices as possible.

The rest will be decided by the community as the year progresses: as always, there's no roadmap, it's up to you to choose what will arrive in Gladys in 2024 🙌

Thank you all!​

Thanks to everyone who supports Gladys, whether by developing new features, contributing via Gladys Plus, via one-off donations, or helping out on the forum.

Happy new year to all!

Pierre-Gilles Leymarie

2 weeks ago, I was live on Youtube for a live coding session that lasted over 7 hours!!!

In this live, I developed from start to finish a Sonos integration for Gladys.

The live coding was in French, if you are interested, the live replay is available here on YouTube.

Today, I'm happy to release Gladys Assistant 4.32, which includes this Sonos integration 😁

Sonos integration in Gladys​

Now you can connect your Sonos speakers to Gladys.

On the dashboard, you'll find a "Music" widget that lets you control a speaker:

And that's all for now!

And yes, the goal of this development was to have a working MVP of a Sonos integration in Gladys, and I think the contract is fulfilled 😊

Now I'm looking for a maintainer who'd like to help move this integration forward.

If you want to lend a hand tomorrow, join us on the forum!

Sending a message when the battery is low​

You've dreamed of it? Lokkye has done it for you!

From now on, every Saturday morning at 9am, if one or more devices in your connected home have a battery level below a certain threshold, Gladys will send you a message (on Telegram if you've set it up):

Thanks Lokkye for the development 🙌

Zigbee2mqtt: Managing the IKEA Vindstyrka sensor​

The IKEA Vindstyrka Zigbee sensor returned a voc_index value that we didn't manage in Gladys for the moment. Unlike a "raw" VOC value, this one represents a variation:

The index has a scale from 0 to 500, with a reference value of 100 representing average air quality over the last 24 hours. A reading below 100 indicates an improvement in air quality, and above 100 a deterioration.

Will_71 on the forum has looked into the subject and brought us the accounting! Thanks 🙌

Zigbee2mqtt: Complete management of the OWON PIR313-E sensor​

This sensor exposes 2 features we didn't manage yet: "low battery" (we already manage the battery level), and "tamper detection" (if a thief tries to remove the motion sensor).

Will_71 has worked on this again, many thanks 🙌

Dashboard: Add one "Add" button per column​

A small UX fix that may seem simple but will greatly simplify our lives: there's now an "Add +" button per column on the dashboard!

Thank you Brisou for your first PR on Gladys, which I hope will be the first of many 🙌

Sending an MQTT message in scenes​

It's now possible to send an MQTT message in scenes, to a custom topic and with a custom message.

Thanks Lokkye for the great PR 🙌

Fixes​

A few fixes have crept into this release!

• Some fixes on the new scene tag filtering feature by Lokkye 🙌
• In scenes, some selectors were overlapping each other, this is no longer the case. Thanks Will_71 🙌
• The Gladys container launches the Node process directly, which allows the database to be closed correctly when Gladys stops. Thanks cicoub13 for the fix 🙌

The complete CHANGELOG is available here.

How to upgrade?​

If you installed Gladys with the official Raspberry Pi OS image, your instance will update automatically in the coming hours. It can take up to 24 hours, don't panic.

If you installed Gladys with Docker, make sure you are using Watchtower. See the documentation.

With Watchtower, Gladys will update automatically.

Support us​

If you want to support us, there are many ways:

• Answer posts on the forum, give your feedback.
• Help us improve the documentation.
• Develop new features/integrations on Gladys, we are 100% open-source.
• Subscribe to Gladys Plus

At the end of October I presented Gladys Assistant 4.30, a version that brought a complete alarm to Gladys!

Today I'm releasing Gladys Assistant 4.31, a version that brings a lot of new features and fixes following your feedback on the alarm mode 🎉🎉

Tag filtering in scenes​

Many of you have been asking for a mechanism to filter the increasing number of scenes in your instances, and @Lokkye has done just that!

You can now add one or more tags to your scenes:

And then you can filter your scenes by tag:

This allows you to organize your scenes more easily (by room, by function).

New trigger: Receiving an MQTT message​

It's now possible to trigger a scene on receipt of a customized MQTT message!

The aim of this trigger is to enable simplified external integrations for advanced users, without necessarily going through Node-RED.

For example, if you're a Frigate user and want to receive an MQTT message in Gladys when motion is detected on a camera, you can!

This is just an example, but you'll want to go a lot further, and make scripts that call Gladys via this trigger, for example!

Cleaning up sensor states in the database​

When you installed Gladys, you normally chose the retention time for sensor states.

Today, I'm adding new durations to Gladys for this parameter:

And I've added a new parameter "Keep aggregate states" which lets you tell Gladys how long to keep the pre-calculated states for display on the dashboard:

The idea of this parameter is to be able to keep, for example, "6 months of raw data" + "1 year of aggregated data", so as not to keep the raw data for too long, while still having the last year displayed on the dashboard.

Note: If you have a large Gladys database, consider changing this setting. The next cleaning will take place at 4 a.m. the following day!

New docker-compose.yml file​

Cyril has been working on the docker-compose.yml file we offer on the site for installing Gladys.

It's now fully up to date!

Philips Hue: Adding a hybrid scan + manually adding a bridge​

Some of you were having trouble using Philips Hue integration because your Philips Hue bridge wasn't being detected locally by Gladys.

Cyril has been working on a new "hybrid" scan that does an "N-UpNp" scan in addition to the "UpNp" scan we were doing.

If Gladys still doesn't detect your Philips Hue bridge, you can add it manually via its IP address.

Chat: Display a camera by name​

It is now possible to display a camera in chat by calling it by its name (and not necessarily by the name of the room).

For example, if your camera is called "Fridge camera", you can ask Gladys to display it:

If you ask "Show me the camera in the living room" and there are several cameras in the living room, Gladys will now send you all the images.

Fixes​

• Inversion of door opening sensor labels in scenes. Open becomes closed and closed becomes open (this was an error!). There's nothing to change on your side on your existing scenes if these scenes were working, only the label has changed, not the value.
• The name of the "Alarm" widget is now optional. If left blank, the title bar will be hidden.
• In the alarm, when the ?fullscreen=force parameter is supplied, it must be retained despite redirections on the locked screen, as well as after an alarm unlock.

The complete CHANGELOG is available here.

How to upgrade?​

If you installed Gladys with the official Raspberry Pi OS image, your instance will update automatically in the coming hours. It can take up to 24 hours, don't panic.

If you installed Gladys with Docker, make sure you are using Watchtower. See the documentation.

With Watchtower, Gladys will update automatically.

Support us​

If you want to support us, there are many ways:

• Answer posts on the forum, give your feedback.
• Help us improve the documentation.
• Develop new features/integrations on Gladys, we are 100% open-source.
• Subscribe to Gladys Plus, at -40% right now!!

Gladys Assistant 4.30 has just been released, and it's a hell of a version!!! 🥳

The main feature is the complete management of an Alarm mode that allows you to set up a complete home security system.

You've got to admit, it does make you want to 😎

An alarm in Gladys​

Gladys can now replace a complete alarm system by managing the various states of any good alarm system:

If you'd like to set up an alarm with Gladys, I've written a complete tutorial on the subject!

Node-RED integration​

It was already possible to interface Node-RED with Gladys (with the MQTT integration), but this required some knowledge as you had to launch Node-RED yourself.

Lokkye has worked on a native integration so that anyone can launch a Node-RED instance alongside Gladys with a single click!

From now on, just go to the "Node-RED" integration and click on "Activate" to launch a Node-RED container:

Tuya: Power consumption management​

Tuya integration now supports connected sockets that report electricity consumption data.

Thanks to Lokkye for the development 🙏

Launch a scene from chat​

This was already possible with the ChatGPT integration, but this command has just been added to the Gladys "local" chat model. You can now ask Gladys to launch a scene in the chat:

Thanks to Lokkye for the development 🙏

Launch a scene with MQTT​

You can now launch a scene using MQTT by posting a message on the topic:

gladys/master/scene/SCENE_SELECTOR/start

By replacing SCENE_SELECTOR with the scene selector, which can be found in the scene edition URL.

For example, for the scene http://192.168.1.10/dashboard/scene/cinema, you'll need to send a message to the topic:

gladys/master/scene/cinema/start

Thanks Lokkye for the development 🙏

Launch a scene when Gladys starts up​

Want to receive a message when Gladys restarts? Perform an operation every time Gladys starts up?

You can now launch a scene when Gladys starts up:

Thanks Lokkye for the development 🙏

Zigbee2mqtt: Interface enhancement​

Devices already added will no longer be displayed by default in the "Zigbee network discovery" page:

And the Zigbee2mqtt URL is now displayed on the configuration page!

Bug correction: When changing the USB key port, Gladys restarts the Zigbee2mqtt container with the correct volume.

Thanks to AlexTrovato and Cicoub13 for these improvements 🙏

Homekit: Humidity and leak sensors management​

From now on, your leak and humidity sensors will be put back into Homekit!

Thanks bertrandda for the development 🙏

The complete CHANGELOG is available here.

How to upgrade?​

If you installed Gladys with the official Raspberry Pi OS image, your instance will update automatically in the coming hours. It can take up to 24 hours, don't panic.

If you installed Gladys with Docker, make sure you are using Watchtower. See the documentation.

With Watchtower, Gladys will update automatically.

Support us​

If you want to support us, there are many ways:

• Answer posts on the forum, give your feedback.
• Help us improve the documentation.
• Develop new features/integrations on Gladys, we are 100% open-source.
• Subscribe to Gladys Plus, at -40% right now!!

Another Gladys update with lots of new features 🥳

Integrations with Mitsubishi air conditioners​

It's now possible to connect your Mitsubishi air conditioners (connected via MELCloud) to Gladys!

Thanks to @Lokkye for the development 🙌

Full screen mode for Gladys tablets​

If you're using Gladys on a touchscreen tablet somewhere in your home, it's likely that you'll want to display the Gladys dashboard full-screen, without the option of navigating away from that screen.

This is now possible, thanks to a parameter to be added to the URL:

?fullscreen=force

To enable better use of "tablet on the wall" type devices, the duration of connection sessions has been increased to 1 year.

(Sessions can still be revoked in Gladys settings at any time).

Set room temperature/humidity widget limits​

It's now possible to define at what limit the colors of the "Temperature/Humidity" widgets change.

A bedroom doesn't necessarily have the same limits as a bathroom, or a terrarium!

When editing a dashboard, you can now define customized thresholds:

Thanks @Lokkye for this development 🙌

Camera images expire​

From now on, expired camera images will no longer be displayed on the dashboard:

Tuya roller shutter management​

The Tuya integration was released this summer, and a new type of device has just been added: roller shutters.

Thanks @Lokkye for this development 🙌

Lots of fixes​

• In MQTT, NextCloud Talk and Tasmota integration, password fields will no longer be automatically filled in by browsers (to avoid auto-fill bugs) (#1881)
• On the dashboard, some devices no longer have value expiration dates (smoke detector, water leak detector, button, and text)
• Improved translations in OpenWeather integration (#1897)
• In scenes, in the "Control a device" action, binary devices are initialized to 0 by default instead of "empty value" (#1901)
• In MQTT integration, an error message is added when a device is created with the same external ID as an existing device (#1902)
• Better validation of "string" states (#1894)

Full CHANGELOG available here.

How to upgrade?​

If you installed Gladys with the official Raspberry Pi OS image, your instance will update automatically in the coming hours. It can take up to 24 hours, don't panic.

If you installed Gladys with Docker, make sure you are using Watchtower. See the documentation.

With Watchtower, Gladys will update automatically.

Support us​

If you want to support us, there are many ways:

• Answer posts on the forum, give your feedback.
• Help us improve the documentation.
• Develop new features/integrations on Gladys, we are 100% open-source.
• Subscribe to Gladys Plus, at -40% right now!!

Hope you spent good holidays ☀️

On the Gladys Assistant front, I returned last week with an update to v4.26.1, which introduced a set of fixes in response to your feedback over the summer.

Today I'm following up with a more important update in terms of features: Gladys Assistant 4.27.

Rename your devices on the dashboard​

This was a feature that had long been the talk of the town: what should be displayed on the dashboard to properly "define" a feature: the device name? Device name and room? The feature name? Or both?

After some thought, I realized that we'd never be able to please everyone, so I decided to let the user modify the name when displaying it on the dashboard.

In concrete terms, on the dashboard, in the "Devices" widget you can rename and move each device according to your preference:

New Zigbee devices​

Gladys is now fully compatible with 3 new Zigbee devices, including two from the IKEA connected range.

For those unfamiliar with the IKEA Zigbee connected lighting offering, it's very affordable (from €9.99 for a bulb, €6.99 for a switch), and of good quality. If you're new to home automation, this is a good way to start. What's more, it's available in all IKEA stores or by delivery on their website!

IKEA TRÅDFRI button with dimmer switch​

This button is a very inexpensive On/Off switch (6,99€ at IKEA), which also acts as a dimmer when pressed on or off.

I've added support for 5 actions:

• On
• Off
• Increase brightness
• Reduce brightness
• Stop brightness

These actions are available in scenes for your automations:

IKEA STYRBAR button with intensity and color control​

This connected remote control allows you to control the On/Off, dimming and color of one or more bulbs. It's available for 9,99€ at IKEA.

I've added support for 11 actions:

• On
• Off
• Increase brightness
• Reduce brightness
• Stop brightness
• Left arrow click
• Right arrow click
• Left arrow hold
• Right arrow held
• Left arrow released
• Right arrow released

These actions are also available in scenes to automate whatever you wish.

Of course, when used in Gladys, these two buttons can control anything and everything.

For those who want more "direct" control, it's possible to use the Bindings Zigbee2mqtt to enable a direct association between the switch and the bulb, in direct Zigbee.

This allows you to have live control that works even if your home automation is inactive.

Xiaomi WXKG01LM button​

I've added a few actions that were missing for this button:

• Triple click
• Quadruple click
• Release click
• Lots of clicks

Missing Zigbee compatibility?​

If you have a Zigbee device that is not fully supported by Gladys, don't hesitate to post a message on the forum.

How to upgrade?​

If you installed Gladys with the official Raspberry Pi OS image, your instance will update automatically in the coming hours. It can take up to 24 hours, don't panic.

If you installed Gladys with Docker, make sure you are using Watchtower. See the documentation.

With Watchtower, Gladys will update automatically.

Support us​

If you want to support us, there are many ways:

• Answer posts on the forum, give your feedback.
• Help us improve the documentation.
• Develop new features/integrations on Gladys, we are 100% open-source.
• Subscribe to Gladys Plus, at -40% right now!!

Today I'm pleased to announce Gladys Assistant 4.26, a release that brings compatibility with Tuya-compatible devices.

It was already possible to use certain Tuya Zigbee devices with Gladys via our Zigbee2mqtt integration, but now Wi-Fi connected sockets and light bulbs are also compatible via an official Tuya integration 🎉🎉

-40% on Gladys Plus with this launch​

To mark this launch, I'm offering 40% off your first Gladys Plus payment with the code TUYA2023 !

Hurry up, it's happening on Gladys Plus here!!!

Compatible devices​

For now we only support 2 types of devices: sockets & lights.

For example:

Tuya sockets like this $12 energy monitoring socket are compatible.

Tuya compatible lights like Dalattin pack of 4 light bulbs for $20,99 are compatible!

To configure these devices, you can follow the tutorial in Gladys documentation.

If you have other Tuya devices that are not yet managed, please come to the forum to talk about them.

Many thanks to Lokkye on the forum for this development 🙌

Rotating camera images​

It's now possible to rotate a camera image 90°, 180°, and 270°, on the dashboard and in video lives.

Thanks to Lokkye for this development 🙌

How to upgrade?​

If you installed Gladys with the official Raspberry Pi OS image, your instance will update automatically in the coming hours. It can take up to 24 hours, don't panic.

If you installed Gladys with Docker, make sure you are using Watchtower. See the documentation.

With Watchtower, Gladys will update automatically.

Support us​

If you want to support us, there are many ways:

• Answer posts on the forum, give your feedback.
• Help us improve the documentation.
• Develop new features/integrations on Gladys, we are 100% open-source.
• Subscribe to Gladys Plus, at -40% right now!!

New version of Gladys today with some really nice changes that improve the way Gladys is used on a daily basis.

Just before I get started, I wanted to tell you about a great deal I found on Amazon the other day, which I think is really worth it to get started in home automation with reliable, high-performance equipment:

Beelink mini-PCs are in flash promotion, at 159$ (-20%) for an 8GB RAM mini-PC, 128GB SSD, Intel Quad-Core processor, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

The 16GB RAM version is priced at 179$.

Some people in the community have even ordered several, so to speak 😂

The community is pretty unanimous in saying that today, mini-PCs are a more than serious alternative to the Raspberry Pi, hard to find, and ultimately at a similar price when you take everything into account ( Board + SSD + power supply + case ).

New "Devices" widget​

It was a point of frustration for many, until now it wasn't possible to create a "Devices" widget mixing devices from different rooms.

That's now fixed with this new widget developed by Lokkye, which is fully customizable: you can drag any device into it, and put any title you like :

Improved scene UX​

The overall experience of creating and editing scenes has been greatly enhanced in this version.

First of all, a scene now has an editable description, allowing you to better discern your scenes:

This description can be edited super-simply by clicking on the description in the scene:

You'll notice that the header at the top of the scene editing screen has been improved to be more functional and easier to read. Secondary functions (duplication and deletion) have been relegated to a "More" button, so as not to constantly overload the screen with buttons.

On mobile, responsive has been improved to keep the screen clear and legible even on small screens:

Finally, Gladys now offers the most frequently requested feature: moving actions/blocks of actions within scenes.

This selectable cross makes it possible to grab actions and drag & drop them to another point in the scene.

Send camera image in scenes​

Super PR from Lokkye, which now lets you send a camera image by message in scenes.

The idea behind this feature is to be able to make "If motion is detected THEN send me an image of the outside camera by message" scenes:

Google Home: Fix brightness management bug​

I got feedback from a Swedish Gladys user who explained that his IKEA Tradfi bulbs weren't working very well with Google Home integration.

When he set the brightness to 100% in Google Home, his bulbs were only at half their brightness in Gladys.

The reason for this bug was quite simple: IKEA Tradfi bulbs have a brightness range of 0-254 and not 0-100%, so a small conversion step is needed to go from the Google Home scale (0-100%) to the Tradfi scale (0-254), and back again.

The bug has been corrected in this PR.

Surface units added​

This was a request from Hizo on the forum, so it's now possible to add surface MQTT devices.

Useful, for example, for a robot vacuum cleaner that returns the cleaned/cleaning surface.

HomeKit: Link reset button added​

Thanks to a PR from bertrandda, it is now possible to reset the link with Homekit in Gladys :

How to upgrade?​

If you installed Gladys with the official Raspberry Pi OS image, your instance will update automatically in the coming hours. It can take up to 24 hours, don't panic.

If you installed Gladys with Docker, make sure you are using Watchtower. See the documentation.

With Watchtower, Gladys will update automatically.

Thanks to contributors​

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this release and gave their feedback.

If you want to talk about this release, you're all welcome on the forum!

Support us​

If you want to support us, there are many ways:

• Answer posts on the forum, give your feedback.
• Help us improve the documentation.
• Develop new features/integrations on Gladys, we are 100% open-source.
• Subscribe to Gladys Plus, at -40% right now!!

I'm happy to present you today Gladys Assistant 4.23, a new release with lots of new features!

Live streaming camera​

The major feature of this version is the ability to watch your cameras live on the dashboard, either locally or remotely via Gladys Plus.

The video stream is encrypted from end to end before guaranteeing your privacy, as always 😉

Note: This feature requires quite a lot of resources (playing a video stream, compressing it, encrypting it, live, it requires resources!), if the live doesn't start or takes really too long to start, it might be that your machine is not powerful enough for it. 32-bit Raspberry Pi's are not powerful enough for this, for example.

Selecting the Zigbee dongle model​

In the Zigbee integration, it is now possible to select which Zigbee dongle model you are using, which will update the Zigbee2mqtt configuration file automatically!

Thanks to AlexTrovato for the development 👏

Calculations in scenes​

In scenes, it is now possible to do mathematical calculations in 2 places:

In the "continue only if" condition, it is possible to compare several variables with each other, while doing a mathematical calculation:

In the action "control a device" it is possible to use a variable and a mathematical calculation to deduce the value that will be sent to the device.

Very useful to make dynamic scenes that adapts to the execution of the scene!

Thanks @bertrandda for the development 👏

NextCloud Talk integrations​

New integration! This integration allows you to use NextCloud Talk to chat with Gladys, the same way the Telegram integration works.

Thanks @bertrandda for the development 👏

Various improvements and fixes​

• Improved account creation process: more responsive, simpler, with less information to fill in.
• Homekit integration now supports door/window opening sensors
• The dashboard displays the sensor names in a clearer way (#1749)
• Fixed a bug on the "HTTP Request" action that did not allow to have an empty POST request body (#1772)

How to upgrade?​

If you installed Gladys with the official Raspberry Pi OS image, your instance will update automatically in the coming hours. It can take up to 24 hours, don't panic.

If you installed Gladys with Docker, make sure you are using Watchtower. See the documentation.

With Watchtower, Gladys will update automatically.

Thanks to contributors​

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this release and gave their feedback.

If you want to talk about this release, you're all welcome on the forum!

Support us​

If you want to support us, there are many ways:

• Answer posts on the forum, give your feedback.
• Help us improve the documentation.
• Develop new features/integrations on Gladys, we are 100% open-source.
• Subscribe to Gladys Plus.

Unless you live in a cave, you've probably heard about ChatGPT/GPT-3, an artificial intelligence developed by OpenAI.

On the internet, everyone has tried to chat with this AI, whether it was to see if it would replace us at work, do better than us in university exams, or just to see how it reacts when asked convoluted questions.

On my side, I think this AI is a great tool, a kind of overpowered search engine, accessible to language, which has access to an impressive dataset!

What does this have to do with Gladys?​

In Gladys, we have always had a "Discussion" tab, which allows you to send requests to Gladys: "Turn on the light in the living room", "Show me the camera in the garden", "What is the temperature in the bathroom?

On the principle, this tab works in the same way as GPT-3: we trained a neural network on a set of data, to "teach" it to respond to user commands.

The difference between the current implementation in Gladys, and GPT-3, is the size of the input data.

Where Gladys was trained on a few commands, GPT-3 was trained on 175 billion parameters, including:

• Petabytes of web pages crawled over 8 years
• All Reddit content with more than 3 upvotes
• A lot of books
• All of Wikipedia

To train this model, OpenAI used a cluster of 10,000 Nvidia V100 graphics cards. Monstrous!

Once trained, this model is so big that you need a server with at least 175 GB of RAM to run it 🤯

In short, you get it, GPT-3 is at an impressive level that is hard to reach on our small scale.

OpenAI GPT-3 integration in Gladys​

This model, OpenAI did not create it for them, it is available via an API ( and it's not free, because they obviously have to pay for the 10k Nvidia V100 ^^).

It is this API that I integrated in Gladys!

I did some tests to see if GPT-3 could have an interest in home automation, and frankly it's amazing.

I worked on the "prompt" that I send to GPT-3 to delimit the framework of possible interactions, and it works great!

GPT-3 manages to classify each request, and can answer a lot of questions because I remind you that GPT-3 has access to content coming from everywhere on the internet.

But enough talking...

Show time!​

Let's start easy, I forgot how to boil eggs?

Here, I have a question about home automation, what do you think Gladys?

I don't remember how to display the logs of a Docker container...

What's the height of the Eiffel Tower?

AI seems super smart, is it the future?

But isn't this dangerous? I've seen i-Robot, and humans were getting locked up in their homes!

Phew, we were not far from a catastrophe there!

How to test?​

As the GPT-3 API is not free, I offer this integration to all Gladys Plus users.

If you want to test, you have to switch to Gladys Plus, and as a bonus you will support the growth of an amazing open-source project 😊

On the occasion of this launch, I launched the promo code SMART2023 which gives -40% discount on your first Gladys Plus payment, for 59,99€ per year ( 4,99€/month ).

No excuses!

➡️ Learn more about Gladys Plus ⬅️

You must be in Gladys Assistant v4.15 to take advantage of this integration, and you will find the integration in the "Integrations" tab:

Next​

For now, this integration is an alpha, the goal is to collect your feedback and allow you to test.

This integration has for now no impact on your home automation system, if you ask it to turn on the light, it will answer you but will not do the action.

Depending on your feedback, we will be able to integrate GTP-3 fully with Gladys.

So, what do you think? Excited? 😄

I'm waiting for your feedback on the forum!

How to upgrade?​

If you installed Gladys with the official Raspberry Pi OS image, your instance will update automatically in the coming hours. It can take up to 24 hours, don't panic.

If you installed Gladys with Docker, make sure you are using Watchtower. See the documentation.

With Watchtower, Gladys will update automatically.

Every year I write an article to summarize what happened in the past year, and my projects for the next one.

This year is no exception, so here is my yearly review on Gladys.

What happened in 2022?​

2022 was an amazing year for Gladys Assistant!

We were even more productive than last year with 28 releases, which is one release every 2 weeks on average.

I think it's the maximum we should do, as pushing too much is a burden for users, and could reduce overall stability. One release every 2 weeks looks like a good rytmn that we will keep in 2023.

This year, we got 200 PRs merged on master from amazing contributors!

We can remember those features:

• Calendar based triggers and conditions in scenes
• Amazon Alexa support
• Broadlink integration
• Apple Homekit support
• Node 18 compatibility and Ecowatt integration

Thanks to all contributors who contributed to this release, it's thanks to you that we can have such a great product today!

I'm thinking about: Alexandre Trovato, Vincent Kulak, Bertrand D'Aure, Cyril Beslay, Corentin Allemand, NickDub, Terdious, Romuald Pochet and Nicolas Geissel! 🙏

Usage​

We saw this year quite some growth in usage on the product.

This year, every month had more users than the same month of the previous year (expect January but that's because in January 2021 it was the launch of the v4, with media coverage).

On the revenue side, we saw a +33,8% increase in revenue from 2021.

Most of the revenue came in March when I launched the yearly plan for 59,99€:

I'm very happy with those numbers and I hope this trend will continue in 2023.

The YouTube channel​

This year I released 8 videos and recorded 3 YouTube lives.

It's a bit more than last year (5 videos & 5 lives), and it's definitely worth it.

Those videos brings visibility on Youtube about what we're doing on Gladys/

In terms of views, I did twice the numbers of views of 2021, from 9k to 20k views in a year:

For now the channel is all in French, if you are interested here are my most popular videos this year:

• Gérez vos appareils Zigbee dans votre domotique avec Zigbee2mqtt et Gladys Assistant
• Installer un Raspberry Pi sur un disque externe SSD sans ligne de commandes (pour débutant)
• Live : Lancement de Gladys Assistant 4.9 avec le support d'Amazon Alexa
• Louis et sa boîte aux lettres connectée - Gladys Assistant chez vous #1

Social networks​

On social networks:

• @gladysassistant on Twitter has 2,775 followers
• Gladys Assistant Facebook counts 763 likes
• @gladysassistant on instagram brings together 575 subscribers

And finally 2,266 followers on my personal Twitter!

The newsletter​

In terms of the newsletter, 3,388 of you follow the Gladys Assistant newsletter.

• 2874 subscribers in French
• 514 subscribers in English

It's less than last year, but as I said last year I implemented a bounce detection feature that purges subscribers that no longer receive my emails.

Let's see what happens in 2023, but this time I hope to grow this mailing list!

The GitHub Gladys Assistant​

We are at 2,233 stars ⭐ on the Gladys Assistant repo

It's +19% compared to last year!

Still a yearly double-digit growth on the Github 😍

I am counting on you to support us on GitHub by putting a star ⭐ on the project.

Projects and goals for 2023​

As I was telling you, the growth in use, as well as Gladys Plus turnover, all of this makes me much more confident for the future.

Unlike the end of 2021 when my opinion was mixed, I am convinced that Gladys is a project with infinite potential if we continue on this trajectory.

For my part, I want to go further in 2023, and for that I created a new company for Gladys Assistant : Gladys Assistant SAS.

Until then, I collected the Gladys Plus income on my personal french "micro-enterprise", alongside my freelance income. The concern of this status is that this status did not push me to re-invest the Gladys Plus income in growth, because this status does not allow to deduct its expenses: the income of a micro is considered as personal income, it is not a business separate from the individual.

This change in status will therefore allow me to reinvest the income from Gladys Plus in various projects: contests? Offer hardware + Gladys Plus bundles? Financing home automation equipment? Marketing? Pay a freelance? Everything becomes possible!

It may seem like a simple change, but for me it's a complete paradigm shift that will have a huge impact on the project in 2023.

If you want to contribute to this growth in 2023, join us on Gladys Plus!

Product side​

On the product side, I have lots of ideas for 2023, but the main idea is very simple: to satisfy Gladys users.

Many of you make feature requests on the forum, and the goal is still to bring down these requests one by one from the most voted to the least voted.

Some progress that I would like to see in 2023 on Gladys:

• Duplication of scenes + "Clock" box on the dashboard
• Enedis-Linky integration
• New integrations (Zwave-js-ui, Withings, Yeelight)
• Highly requested UX improvement: Re-order scenes, dashboard, etc...
• More content: Mini-PC tutorial? Better developer documentation? More Youtube videos!
• Matter support?

Thank you all!​

Thank you to all those who support Gladys, whether by developing new features, by contributing via Gladys Plus, via one-time donations, or by helping on the forum.

Another happy new year to all!

Pierre-Gilles Leymarie