ESPHome 2025.8.0 brings significant updates in hardware support and notable improvements in performance and memory optimization. This update, released on August 20, 2025, expands the platform’s capabilities, particularly through support for new devices, ESP-NOW support, faster string handling, reduction of duplicate code, and waiting times.
New Hardware Support Features
Nordic nRF52 Platform: ESPHome now supports Nordic nRF52 microcontrollers, based on the Zephyr RTOS. This integration allows for easy use of low-energy Bluetooth devices with full support for ADC, GPIO, and advanced debugging through the Zephyr debug component.
ESP-NOW: The newly supported communication protocol ESP-NOW enables direct wireless communication between ESP32 devices without the need for WiFi infrastructure. This allows for the creation of a low-latency, low-power sensor network, for example.
MIPI DSI Displays: The update adds support for high-performance MIPI DSI displays specifically designed for ESP32-P4 processors. This enables the use of professional high-resolution displays, hardware acceleration, and lower CPU load compared to SPI displays.
Other new components and platforms include the new LD2412 sensor, runtime_stats for performance debugging, CO5300 display, and extended support for ADC and PSRAM on ESP32.
Performance and Memory Optimizations
Significant flash memory savings due to conditional compilation, protobuf protocol optimizations with a “zero-copy” approach, and reduction of duplicate code.
Faster runtime performance: 10x faster string handling thanks to the use of memcpy operations, improved scheduler with fewer millis() calls, and enhanced BLE scanning with batch processing.
API optimizations that reduce flash memory and runtime memory requirements.
Software Requirements and Changes
ESPHome now requires Python 3.11 or higher, ending support for Python 3.10 and earlier. This decision is related to maintaining security and leveraging modern Python features.
Some backward-incompatible changes, particularly in the areas of Bluetooth and BLE, API, and component filtering. For example, the removal of support for older Bluetooth Proxy and the redesign of filters for LD2410 and LD2450 sensors.
Overall, ESPHome 2025.8.0 moves the platform towards supporting modern, low-energy, and professional devices with a strong focus on performance and memory efficiency, contributing to broader automation capabilities and improved reliability of systems based on ESPHome.
If you are running ESPHome directly with pip installation, remember to upgrade to Python 3.11 or higher before updating, otherwise the update will fail.
No Python update is required when using it with Home Assistant Add-on or Docker.
Change log https://esphome.io/changelog/2025.8.0/
Project page https://esphome.io/
