A community developer has released the first public alpha of Weather Intelligence, a custom integration that brings official National Weather Service (NWS) alerts, radar and optional daily outlooks into Home Assistant. It was posted on the Home Assistant community forum on October 20, 2026, and the author is asking for testers.
What it does
The idea is alerts that respect your preferences and location without redoing setup every time you change something. According to the author, you can:
- Cover both home and travel locations.
- Choose which alert types you receive.
- Decide which alerts may bypass Do Not Disturb on your phone.
- Opt in to a shared system that flags signs of NWS outages and delayed alert feeds.
Marine alerts and nearby water notices are included, but the author says they are in an early state and need more testing.
Where it stands
- Release: 0.1.24-alpha (October 20, 2026; licence AGPL-3.0).
- Coverage: United States only. That rules it out for us here in Canada, and for anyone outside the US.
- Requires: Home Assistant 2026.9.2 or newer.
- Phone notifications: through the Home Assistant Companion app.
- Install: as a HACS custom repository while the submission to the default catalogue awaits review. If HACS does not pick the alpha automatically, choose the newest alpha (0.1.24-alpha today) under “Need a different version?” The My Home Assistant link opens the repository in your own instance.
- License: AGPL v3. The author says AI assistance was used in building it and that they remain responsible for the project and its releases.
The author has tested on an Android phone only and specifically wants iPhone feedback.
The privacy claims
The author says settings and location comparisons stay inside Home Assistant, while weather and map providers still receive the location or area they need to do their job. Error reporting is optional. Outage contributions need their own separate permission and use a random installation number to count reports, and you can receive outage notices without contributing.
One forum reply pointed out that this is the same level of privacy as other weather integrations. The author agreed and clarified that they are not claiming it is unique. The point was to spell out what stays local and what is sent elsewhere. They add that the optional reporting and shared outage detection are off by default and that admins can review reports in a local history.
What it means for an installed system
This is an alpha, and the author says it should be used alongside other official warning sources. We would treat it that way: do not make it the only thing between you and a tornado warning.
- Back up first. Custom integrations installed through HACS are outside Home Assistant core, so take a backup before adding one, and check your version is 2026.9.2 or newer.
- Test the Do Not Disturb bypass on your own phones before relying on it, since the author has only tested on Android.
- Leave the optional sharing off until you have read what it sends. Both error reporting and outage contribution are opt-in according to the author.
- Marine alerts are explicitly early, so do not lean on them yet.
- Outside the US, wait. Nothing on the pages suggests coverage elsewhere is planned.
We have not run it ourselves. If you are in the US and comfortable with alpha software, it is a reasonable candidate to trial on a test instance and report back to the author. Everyone else can watch the thread and wait for a beta and for the default HACS catalogue listing.