System

Write logs, set log levels, manage the recorder, set themes, back up, wake devices and manage cloud, FFmpeg and Google Assistant.

These commands act on Home Assistant itself rather than on entities. Most need an admin token.

Logbook and system log

logbook log adds a logbook entry. The name and message read as one sentence, such as “Kitchen is being used”:

ha-bridge logbook log Kitchen "is being used"
ha-bridge logbook log Desk "was cleared" --entity-id light.desk --domain light

--entity-id ties the entry to an entity, and --domain picks its icon.

system_log write writes to the log and the system log, at error unless you set --level to debug, info, warning or critical. system_log clear empties the system log:

ha-bridge system_log write "Backup drive is nearly full" --level warning --logger backup.monitor
ha-bridge system_log clear

Log levels

logger default-level sets the level for loggers without their own, and logger level sets particular loggers, as logger=level. The levels are debug, info, warning, error, fatal and critical:

ha-bridge logger default-level warning
ha-bridge logger level homeassistant.components.mqtt=debug homeassistant.components.zha=info

Recorder

recorder purge removes history older than --keep-days, or the recorder’s own purge_keep_days. --repack frees the disk space afterwards, and --apply-filter also removes what the recorder’s filters now exclude:

ha-bridge recorder purge --keep-days 7 --repack

recorder purge-entities removes history for a target, whole domains or entity ID globs, keeping none unless you set --keep-days:

ha-bridge recorder purge-entities sensor.noisy_power
ha-bridge recorder purge-entities --domain sun --glob "sensor.weather_*" --keep-days 1

recorder disable stops recording until recorder enable or a restart.

recorder statistics prints long-term statistics as JSON, keyed by statistic ID. The start comes first, in Home Assistant’s time zone, then the statistic IDs. --period sets the length of each row, and --type the values to include:

ha-bridge recorder statistics "2026-10-01 00:00" sensor.energy_consumption \
  --period day --type change --unit energy=kWh

{"sensor.energy_consumption":[{"start":"2026-09-30T23:00:00+00:00","end":"2026-10-01T23:00:00+00:00","change":8.42}]}

The periods are 5minute, hour, day, week, month and year, and the types are change, last_reset, max, mean, min, state and sum. Rows only have the types that have a value.

Themes

frontend set-theme sets the default theme. --name-dark sets the default in dark mode, and --mode makes --name set the default for that mode only. The theme none goes back to Home Assistant’s own:

ha-bridge frontend set-theme --name midnight
ha-bridge frontend set-theme --name daylight --name-dark midnight
ha-bridge frontend set-theme --name none --mode dark
ha-bridge frontend reload-themes

lovelace reload-resources reloads dashboard resources set in YAML.

Backups

backup create backs up Home Assistant to the default location, and backup create-automatic backs up with the automatic backup settings. On an installation with the Supervisor, backup create isn’t available; use hassio backup-full instead.

ha-bridge backup create-automatic

Wake on LAN

wake_on_lan send-magic-packet (wol wake) wakes a device by its MAC address. It broadcasts on port 9 to the whole network unless you set --broadcast-address or --broadcast-port:

ha-bridge wol wake aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff
ha-bridge wol wake aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff --broadcast-address 192.168.1.255

Cloud, FFmpeg and Google Assistant

cloud remote-connect and cloud remote-disconnect turn remote access through Home Assistant Cloud on and off.

ffmpeg start, stop and restart control FFmpeg sensors, such as noise and motion sensors. Without a target, they act on every one:

ha-bridge ffmpeg restart binary_sensor.driveway_motion
ha-bridge ffmpeg stop

google_assistant request-sync asks Google to sync its devices, for the token’s user unless you set --agent-user-id.