⚡ Faster updates, and no more silent failures

This release makes the integration quicker and more honest about what your speakers are doing. New installs pick up alarm and timer changes within about 15 seconds instead of 3 minutes, and speakers you add or bring back are found on your network straight away. When something goes wrong, Home Assistant now tells you: a control that fails reports an error naming the speaker, and a speaker that stops answering becomes unavailable instead of showing old values.

Signing in again no longer means removing the integration, and the documentation is reorganised around what you want to do. Two of these changes can affect automations, so read Before you update first.

⚠️ Before you update

• Failed controls now report an error. Turning Do Not Disturb on or off, setting the alarm volume, pressing Reboot, calling google_home.reboot_device or deleting an alarm or timer used to look successful when the speaker was offline or didn't answer. Now the step fails with an error that names the speaker, and an automation or script stops there. To let it carry on, add continue_on_error: true to the step (#1086, #1101, #1135, #1140):

  - action: switch.turn_on
    target:
      entity_id: switch.kitchen_do_not_disturb
    continue_on_error: true

• A speaker that stops answering becomes unavailable. After 5 updates in a row without an answer, all of its entities show unavailable instead of their last values, including the device sensor and Reboot button, and their attributes are gone. They come back at its next answer. Home Assistant skips actions on unavailable entities without an error. (#1144)

• The device sensor's available attribute means something new: whether the device answers successfully, either to its normal update or, if that fails, when asked for its info. A speaker that is rebooting shows false for a moment; a device without alarms, such as a Chromecast Audio, shows true while it works. (#1147)

• New installs update every 15 seconds instead of every 3 minutes. Existing installs keep the interval they have; see the tip above to lower it. (#1137)

✨ Highlights

⚡ Faster updates. Alarm and timer changes reach Home Assistant within about 15 seconds on a new install. Google's device list is fetched every 20 minutes on its own schedule, so a shorter update interval doesn't mean more requests to Google. (#1123, #1137)

📡 New and returning speakers are found on your network. When a speaker announces itself, it gets its address straight away, without waiting for Google's list. A speaker you've just added in the Google Home app usually appears about a minute after it joins the network. (#1089, #1139)

🔑 Sign in again without removing the integration. When Google stops accepting the saved master token, for example after you change your Google password, Home Assistant asks you to sign in again. Signing in with a different account shows an error on the same form, and your devices and entities stay as they are. Sign-in errors now say what actually went wrong. (#1084, #1127, #1128, #1141)

⏸️ Paused timers show the time left, as remaining in the timers sensor's attributes, the same as the speaker's display. (#842, #1136)

🔇 Devices without alarms are left alone. Speakers such as a Chromecast Audio, which have no alarms or timers, are asked only for their info after the first 10 minutes instead of for alarms, volume and Do Not Disturb on every update. They could stall when asked often. (#1133, #1144)

📖 Reorganised documentation. The home page starts with what the integration does and examples; Getting Started ends with a check that a timer shows up; settings live in the new Configuration and management page; each action starts with a short example; and Troubleshooting starts from the symptom you see. Old links still work. (#1145, #1146, #1148, #1149, #1150)

🐛 Bug Fixes

• A speaker that gets a new token is updated straight away instead of at the next update. (#1129)
• A busy speaker gets up to 5 seconds to answer instead of 2. If it doesn't answer, the rest of that update skips it, so one slow speaker doesn't hold up the others. (#1138)
• While Google keeps failing, the integration asks it less often (after 1, 2, 5 and 10 minutes, then every 20 minutes) instead of on every update. (#1142)
• New entities of a device you renamed in Home Assistant use its new name. (#1125)
• A rejected sign-in is logged once, without a traceback, and no unused HTTP session is opened. (#1088, #1126)
• Signing in again keeps the saved Android ID instead of creating a new one. (#1141)

🔎 Known limits

• With a very short update interval (5-7 seconds), a speaker that restarts can briefly show unavailable. At 120-180 seconds, a speaker that's off takes 8-15 minutes to show unavailable.
• Removing a speaker in the Google Home app doesn't reset it. To set it up again, factory reset it first.

📄 Documentation

• Other integrations says which integration to use for media, media volume, text-to-speech and Assistant commands, and the README links to it. (#1143)
• The Actions page says that alarms and timers can't be created, also not with the Google Assistant SDK. (#1098, #1134)
• One Google account can cover several homes: invite it to each home. (#1141)

🔧 Under the hood

• Updated glocaltokens to 1.2.0, with clearer errors when Google refuses a request. (#1124)
• Dependency updates. (#1130, #1131, #1132)