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SILAM Pollen Roadmap

Project roadmap

A clearer allergy forecast, built around place, time, and context.

SILAM Pollen is moving from a focused pollen sensor integration toward a smarter environmental forecast experience for Home Assistant: easier setup, more transparent data sources, richer forecast context, AI-ready summaries, and future map-based visualizations.

View roadmapExplore future ideas
🌿Pollen-aware homeUnderstand today, tomorrow, and the safest moments to ventilate.
🕒Forecast over timeSee what changed recently, what is happening now, and what comes next.
🗺️Spatial awarenessFuture map layers can show how pollen risk moves around your location.

Note: this roadmap is a strategic direction for the project. Release scope and ordering may change depending on Home Assistant changes, SILAM dataset availability, external service reliability, and user feedback.

Visual overview​

v0.4.2SetupLocation-first onboardingv0.4.3FoundationCleaner internalsv0.4.4TimelinePast + future forecastv0.4.5WeatherMore forecast contextv0.4.6SummaryClean data accessv0.4.7AssistAI-ready answersFutureMaps + domainsDust, fire, 2D overlay
Release plan

Strategic milestones

v0.4.2Next

A better first-run experience

The next release focuses on making setup feel natural: choose where you want to monitor pollen first, then let the integration check whether SILAM data is available for that location.

  • Start with a Home Assistant zone or a custom point on the map.
  • Suggest SILAM Pollen automatically for the home zone when it makes sense.
  • Enrich the selected location with altitude and a readable place name when possible.
  • Warn the user if the altitude looks missing or suspicious.
  • Clearly document which external endpoints are required and which are optional.
v0.4.3Foundation

A cleaner technical foundation

This release is about long-term project health. The integration already does a lot; the next architectural step is to make the internal structure easier to evolve.

  • Separate data access, dataset selection, diagnostics, and service status responsibilities.
  • Keep user-facing behavior stable while improving maintainability.
  • Prepare the codebase for richer forecast domains such as weather, dust, maps, and AI summaries.
v0.4.4Timeline

Forecast context from the recent past

Forecasts are easier to understand when users can see the recent trend. This milestone adds a short retrospective window for the custom forecast card.

-12h-9h-6h-3hnow+3h+6h+9h+12h
  • Show how pollen risk moved before the current moment.
  • Keep the history window compact and dashboard-friendly.
  • Support richer visual timelines in Absolute Forecast Card.
v0.4.5Weather

More weather context around pollen

Pollen is strongly shaped by weather. This release expands the forecast experience with weather-related context where the available data allows it.

  • Bring temperature, wind, humidity, precipitation, and cloud context closer to the pollen forecast.
  • Use fields already available in the current forecast where practical.
  • Leave room for a separate weather dataset later if it becomes the better path.
  • Make the custom card more useful for real daily decisions.
v0.4.6Data access

Clean summaries for automations and dashboards

This milestone creates a stable, compact way to ask the integration what matters now, what is coming next, and whether the data source is healthy.

  • Expose clean current, forecast, and service-status summaries.
  • Make automation and notification use cases easier.
  • Keep raw internal data private and avoid exposing oversized payloads.
v0.4.7Assist

AI-ready pollen answers

Home Assistant Assist and LLMs should be able to answer pollen questions in plain language without reading raw internal attributes.

  • Provide safe, compact context for questions like “How bad is pollen today?”
  • Explain risk, primary allergens, best and worst periods, data freshness, and service health.
  • Avoid exposing precise coordinates, full data URLs, debug internals, or heavy raw forecast payloads by default.
Future backlog

Longer-term vision

🌫️

Dust forecast

Explore whether SILAM dust datasets can become a separate forecast domain with its own units, thresholds, entities, diagnostics, and visual language.

🔥

Fire / wildfire risk

Research open fire-risk forecast sources and determine whether they can complement the environmental picture inside Home Assistant.

🗺️

2D pollen map overlay

Move beyond point forecasts by showing a pollen heatmap around the selected location. Start with static overlays, then evolve toward interactive maps and animation.

🧭

Reconfiguration

Let users change the monitored location later without recreating the integration, while keeping cache and data-source state safe.

🧪

Stability and tests

Continue improving confidence around data validation, cache behavior, setup flows, migrations, summaries, and forecast windows.

Network requirements

Endpoint transparency

SILAM Pollen should be clear about which external services it uses and why. This is especially important for users behind firewalls, proxies, or regional network restrictions.

Forecast data

thredds.silam.fmi.fi

SILAM catalogs and forecast data endpoints required for normal forecast operation.

Optional setup helpers

api.opentopodata.org
api.open-elevation.com
nominatim.openstreetmap.org

Altitude lookup and reverse geocoding used only during setup or reconfiguration when enabled.

Project resources

danishru.github.io

Coverage map and project-hosted static resources.