Month of "What the heck?!" 2024 (#36074)

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+---
+title: The month of 'What the Heck?!' 2024
+description: "Ever felt that 'What the heck Home Assistant?!' moment? This month, we would like to learn about your 'what the heck?!' moments..."
+date: 2024-11-30 00:00:00
+date_formatted: "December 1, 2024"
+author: Franck Nijhof
+author_twitter: frenck
+categories: Announcements
+og_image: /images/blog/2024-12-01-the-month-of-what-the-heck/social.jpg
+---
+
+<a href='https://community.home-assistant.io/c/month-of-what-the-heck/61'><img src='/images/blog/2024-12-01-the-month-of-what-the-heck/social.jpg' style='border: 0;box-shadow: none;'></a>
+
+**TL;DR**: For all of December 🎄, we are opening up to share any issue, idea,
+suggestion, or annoyance you have with Home Assistant
+[on our community forums]!
+
+[on our community forums]: https://community.home-assistant.io/c/month-of-what-the-heck/61
+
+## Welcome to the month of “What the heck?!”: Third edition
+
+**It’s back!** 🎉 We are thrilled to announce the **third** edition of the month
+of “What the heck?!” (WTH for short). Every [two] [years], we take the time to
+pause, listen, and dive deep into the little things that maybe you go
+*“What the heck?!”* about Home Assistant.
+
+We’ve been [growing really hard for years now] with over a million
+Home Assistant-powered smart homes out there, and, as of this year, we are also
+[the \#1 open source project on GitHub]!
+
+A lot has happened since [the last edition two years ago]. Lots of effort went
+into making a [voice-controlled Home Assistant] a reality. We have implemented
+[new dashboards and cards] (with drag-and-drop!),
+[added organization capabilities] with labels and categories, and so [much]
+[more]! But did everything turn out the way it should? Did we miss things?
+Or, worse, did something start to annoy you?
+
+That is what this month is about! This year, we are kicking it off in the month
+of **December** as a nice closing activity for this year, and we can’t wait to
+hear from 👉 **YOU** 👈!
+
+[added organization capabilities]: /blog/2024/04/03/release-20244/#three-new-ways-to-organize
+[growing really hard for years now]: https://analytics.home-assistant.io/
+[more]: /blog/2023/11/01/release-202311/#there-is-a-lot-to-do
+[much]: /blog/2024/06/05/release-20246/#dipping-our-toes-in-the-world-of-ai-using-llms
+[new dashboards and cards]: /blog/2024/11/06/release-202411/#sections-dashboard-no-longer-experimental
+[the \#1 open source project on GitHub]: /blog/2024/11/18/event-wrapup-github-universe-24/#we-are-number-1
+[the last edition two years ago]: /blog/2022/09/30/the-month-of-what-the-heck/
+[two]: /blog/2020/08/18/the-month-of-what-the-heck/
+[voice-controlled Home Assistant]: /blog/2022/12/20/year-of-voice/
+[years]: /blog/2022/09/30/the-month-of-what-the-heck/
+
+### Lowering the barrier for sharing WTH?! moments
+
+We realize reporting bugs on our [GitHub] might be a steep hill and, for some,
+maybe even a bit scary. You need a GitHub account to report an issue following
+issue templates and forms, and the report itself needs to be written in a way
+that a developer can work with. Above all, we use our issue tracker to track
+actual issues and bugs, not small feature requests or annoyances.
+
+While this is a common and reasonable process to collect, track, and process
+bugs, our issue tracking-process might not be the ideal way to learn about your
+*“What the heck?!”* moments, small tweaks, and improvements that can make us
+all enjoy Home Assistant even more.
+
+Today, we have opened up a [Community Forum category] as a safe, lower-barrier
+place to talk about your Home Assistant “What the heck?!” moments.
+More importantly: discuss and vote on topics your fellow home automators have
+brought up.
+
+[Community Forum category]: https://community.home-assistant.io/c/month-of-what-the-heck/61
+[GitHub]: https://github.com/home-assistant/core/issues/new/choose
+
+## What are we looking for?
+
+Just as with previous editions, I sent out a related question on my socials
+earlier this week:
+
+> 🎅 𝘚𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨… If you could ask for one small Home Assistant
+> improvement this holiday season, what would it be?
+
+The answers to this question pretty much capture the goal behind this month:
+Finding those nice quality-of-life features and little annoyances, highlighting
+inconsistencies, suggestions for things that could be streamlined more, and even
+big-ticket items. All of those things would make Home Assistant even more
+awesome for everyone.
+
+I’ve received many responses on these social media posts on [X], [Mastodon],
+and [Bluesky]. Most of the responses there are **exactly** what we are looking
+for this month. I’ve picked a few from these platforms to show you what I mean:
+
+- “*Makes exposing entities to HomeKit the same as to Alexa & Google*” ([Peter Hardy-vanDoorn])
+- *"Polygon zones would be so very helpful instead of just the base circle"* ([KrispKiwi])
+- “*Edit a scene without activating it. I can only edit my sleep scene after everyone goes to sleep or in YAML.”* ([codebuild21])
+- *"The possibility of catching errors in automations and being able to take actions when they occur 🙂"* ([Sergio Mayoral])
+- *"Not Fancy! Better backup management, especially pruning options!"* ([Alex Alami])
+- *"Persist my prefered dashboard across my different devices/browsers."* ([Carlos Sánchez López])
+- *"Home Assistant voice hardware!"* ([Paulus Schoutsen]) 😆
+
+These are all great topics for the month of “What the heck?!”, I hope they inspire you for more topics to share 💖.
+
+[Alex Alami]: https://bsky.app/profile/aaposutry.bsky.social/post/3lby3xqhzzk2w
+[Bluesky]: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ofidofdlypuxb2dlfdmbh3a3/post/3lbx2w2kh5a2p
+[Carlos Sánchez López]: https://bsky.app/profile/chayotejarocho.space/post/3lbx7yorfms2c
+[codebuild21]: https://bsky.app/profile/codebuild21.bsky.social/post/3lbx72g4l6s2n
+[KrispKiwi]: https://x.com/KrispKiwi/status/1861825026825265406
+[Mastodon]: https://fosstodon.org/@frenck/113556074335097996
+[Paulus Schoutsen]: https://bsky.app/profile/paulusschoutsen.nl/post/3lbx32dabes2s
+[Peter Hardy-vanDoorn]: https://x.com/peterjvandoorn/status/1861898354038292579
+[Sergio Mayoral]: https://x.com/sermayoral/status/1862109088139583917
+[X]: https://x.com/Frenck/status/1861823068735181154
+
+## Roadmap
+
+As you might be aware, we also create and publish a bigger, high level, roadmap
+for the greater direction of Home Assistant. A few weeks back, [Madelena]
+and [JLo] shared the [2024 Year-end update of our roadmap].
+
+This year’s month of “What the heck?!” is thus different in this regard, as in
+previous editions we didn’t have any roadmap in place. For this year’s WTH,
+the product team will also be watching for items that will help shape and
+prioritize our roadmap for the near future.
+
+As a matter of fact, many items on this year’s roadmap that we’ve worked on
+have their origins or have been shaped by topics from the previous WTH from
+2022. For example, the [ability to organize automations] and the ability to 
+[drag-and-drop cards on your dashboards].
+
+[2024 Year-end update of our roadmap]: https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2024/11/15/roadmap-2024h2/
+[ability to organize automations]: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/why-are-all-automations-in-one-big-list/467153?u=frenck
+[drag-and-drop cards on your dashboards]: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/wth-cant-we-drag-drop-in-the-dashboard/467205?u=frenck
+[JLo]: https://github.com/jlpouffier
+[Madelena]: https://github.com/madelena
+
+## Why December?
+
+In the previous editions, we had this month in October; this year, we decided to
+move it to December. We figured, the holiday season is perfect for this event. 🎄
+
+Many of us have a bit more time on our hands during the holidays, whether that’s
+tinkering with automations, exploring our new dashboards, contributing to our
+project, or simply enjoying engaging our active and vibrant community.
+
+## Start sharing your WTH!
+
+👆That title says it all really. Start sharing **your** “What the heck?!”
+moment, browse through all the WTH moments others brought up, and vote for the
+ones you feel the same about.
+
+We are excited about this month and looking forward to everything brought up!
+
+**[Join us on the forums!]**, or read the **[FAQ](#faq)** below.
+
+[Join us on the forums!]: https://community.home-assistant.io/c/month-of-what-the-heck/61
+
+<p class='img'>
+<img src='/images/blog/2020-08-18-the-month-of-what-the-heck/jackie-chan-what-the-heck.jpg' alt='Image of a person expressing a what the heck moment'></a>
+So, when does Home Assistant trigger this moment for you?
+</p>
+
+## FAQ
+
+- **_“Great! I have multiple things! Should I put all my stuff in a single
+  topic?!”_**
+
+  **No**, please create **multiple**, **smaller** topics. There is no limitation
+  on how many forum topics one can create for WTH. Each topic can be voted on,
+  picked up, and maybe even resolved. Also, having multiple things stacked in
+  a single forum topic makes resolving, discussing, and voting on them hard.
+
+<br />
+
+- **_“Is everything reported going to be fixed/addressed?”_**
+
+  Sorry, but the answer here is **no**; there is no guarantee that it will
+  happen. The goal is to lower the barrier reporting things for one month.
+  Code contributors will definitely join the effort and address a few of the
+  listed things. Still, in the end, the number of submissions in WTH is,
+  in general, simply too much to address. However, we have picked up a lot of
+  items over the years (including bigger topics); it helps us shape our roadmap.
+
+<br />
+
+- **_"I really want this new integration or add-on to be implemented, so I can
+  use my devices. Is this the right place for it?”_**
+
+  **No**, this event is **not** for requesting new add-ons or device/services
+  integrations. Please use the "[Feature Requests]" forum category instead.
+
+<br />
+
+- **_“My WTH topic is one of the top-voted ones, so it is going to be
+  fixed/addressed, right?”_**
+
+  This is **not** a contest. Voting will help with visibility and give a sense
+  of the suggestion's impact. However, it might be difficult or too big to
+  implement. A topic with lots of votes is more likely to be noticed by a
+  contributor, but it is not guaranteed to be picked up.
+  
+  Topics with a lot of engagement, of course, help us shape our future roadmap.
+
+<br />
+
+- **_“I’ve found a bug and am comfortable with GitHub. Where should I report my
+  issue now?”_**
+
+  If you are comfortable using GitHub, please, by all means,
+  [file an issue report on GitHub] instead.
+
+[Feature Requests]: https://community.home-assistant.io/c/feature-requests/13
+[file an issue report on GitHub]: https://github.com/home-assistant/core/issues/new/choose