What's new in Kiosk Satellite 2026.9.91
This release brings two new features: adaptive brightness with a curve you can shape, so the screen climbs from dim to bright where your sensor's readings actually land and the player the Media Player page follows can now appear in Home Assistant as ESPHome entities. It also brings a photorealistic moon to Weather Mood, smoother Weather Mood scenes on fast devices and a shorter name for the Home Assistant settings entry.
New Feature: Adjustable brightness curve
- A curve with four points. The Adaptive brightness page replaces its Minimum brightness, Maximum brightness, Dark room and Bright room rows with a Brightness curve: a chart of screen brightness against the room's light, with four points to drag (#742). The first and last points are the dark and bright room ends. The two in between shape how the screen gets there, so a sensor that reads low in the evening can climb over the few lux it actually reports instead of jumping from dim to bright.
- Smooth and never backwards. A smooth curve runs through all four points and never dims the screen as the room gets brighter.
- Live reading on the chart. The current light level is marked on the curve with the brightness it gives right now.
- Exact values. Tap a point, or its values under the chart, to type a light level and brightness.
- Works with Home Assistant. The Screen light still sets the top point, and the middle points scale with it. The screensaver's brightness levels follow the same curve, scaled to their own level.
- Same editor in the remote admin. It works with the mouse or touch, and arrow keys nudge a focused point.
- Nothing changes until you move a point. Existing setups keep the straight line they had.
New Feature: The followed player in Home Assistant
- Media controls and state as ESPHome entities. A new Expose ESPHome entities switch on the Media Player page, off by default, adds Media play, Media pause, Media next and Media previous buttons and Media state, Media title, Media artist and Media source sensors to the kiosk's ESPHome device (#741).
- Whichever player the page follows. They act on the followed player, including the Local Media Session, whose source reads as the app that plays.
- Buttons and sensors, not a media player. An ESPHome media player carries no track or skip, and Music Assistant already lists the Sendspin player as one.
- Remote API. The new
mediaPlayerStatecommand returns the same state.
Improvements
- Home Assistant Setup is now Home Assistant. The settings entry on the device and in the remote admin drops the word Setup, in every language.
- A photorealistic Weather Mood moon. The moon now shows the real near side of the Moon, from NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter imagery, about 40% larger and with a fainter glow. Stars no longer shine in front of it.
Fixes
- Weather Mood no longer judders in windy scenes on fast devices. The soft text shadows on the clock, the weather chips and At a Glance were redrawn on every frame, which on a Galaxy Tab S8 cost about 80% of a core and made frames miss their slot while the clouds moved. The shadowed text is now drawn once and reused until it changes.