User editable device profiles

[maxlyth]

This project started as a single tool to support the wide diversity of wall panel hardware on the market without having to rely on the typically awful vendor supplied software. The current version of ha-paneld already covers many common wall panels but I am aware that there is a new wave coming in 2026 and it is not realistic that I can maintain profiles for all those devices.

Therefore the next big part I am planning for 0.9.x is user defined, declarative profiles. Currently profiles are defined in code but I will abstract all the functional code so the actual profile definition is a simple text file that can be edited by the user oe even supplied by the panel manufacturer as an importable profile.

For the initial version the profile with be purely declarative with no scripting capability so if a profile needs a new capability it will need a new ha-paneld release. I think this balances capability against security and usability and I will use YAML for the file format as it likely natural for many HA users.

[maxlyth]

The editable device profile is now the default mechanism for bespoke panel support as of 0.9.x. This allows device profiles to be changed without a new release of ha-paneld. I have provided abstract functions for surfacing common methods for accessing custom hardware but genuinely novel hardware sub-system might still need an ha-paneld release.

The idea is to encourage third parties to maintain profiles for their hardware and 0.9.5 adds the ability to create links to product pages to encourage vendors to submit profile while still linking back to their corporate sites. I am considering minimal vendor branding going forward but that will be based on demand.

I don't currently have a mechanism to upload community profiles that is matched in the ha-paneld hardware sbut I am thinking about how that might work. For now a panel is still a text file so can be posted in a forum comment and I have done my best to version control the schema so a post by a contributor from 18 months ago should still be valid.