Prerelease of 2026.8.0 for testing. Update Helios to this version in HACS and hard-refresh.
What's new since b4
- Solid buildings: no longer cut in half at the seams between map tiles, and faces no longer flicker in and out as you turn the scene. Rows of houses that touch at the same height are drawn as one block, roof lines and all.
- Lit facades: walls are shaded by the sun's direction, so a wall facing it reads brighter than one turned away, and a wall in shade is lit by the sky alone.
- Shadows that follow the walls: each shadow takes its building's true outline (concave blocks, inner courtyards) and its roof into account. Shadows no longer lie underneath the building casting them, and they stop at the ground a neighbour stands on instead of running through it. The fade no longer swings to the other side when you nudge the camera.
Changed since b4, worth a look if you tested it
- Rotating on touch is now two fingers, not the press-and-hold b4 shipped (#308). One finger is left entirely to the page, so there is no delay to wait out and no gesture to fight over.
- Forecast is now today to +2 days (3 days), where b4 had yesterday to +2.
- Display radius tops out at 250 m, which is as far as the ground under the buildings actually reaches. A card set higher settles at 250 m; the extra radius used to put buildings out past the edge of the map with nothing under them.
- The timeline sizes itself from the card's height rather than its width, so it keeps its proportions on a phone and on a wall tablet alike, and sits a little taller.
Fixes
- The basemap no longer vanishes after the card has sat in a background tab for a while, leaving the buildings floating over nothing. It is repainted the moment the card comes back, which matters most on a wall tablet.
- The building colour and the home colour now take a plain colour (
#ff0000,rgb(...)) as well as a Home Assistant colour name, like every other colour in the editor. They previously accepted the name only and silently ignored anything else, leaving the buildings grey.
Under the hood
- 77 tests across 15 files covering the new scene geometry: block merging, paint order, shadow sweep, facade shading and colour resolution.
- Touching buildings are merged with polygon-clipping (MIT), now credited in the README.
Full notes in CHANGELOG.md. Feedback very welcome on the issues.