My experience over the past six months of using Home Assistant is mixed.
With every monthly update, something breaks, stuff gets deprecated, then removed. I report those issues, but they get quickly closed without being resolved.
With every monthly update, something breaks, stuff gets deprecated, then removed. I report those issues, but they get quickly closed without being resolved.
I take a similar approach to firmware upgrades for my IoT devices - I run them on a couple of separate vlans, so I feel okay only updating them every few months when I see the need (mostly custom builds of tasmota/esphome/etc.)
HA is not ready for grandma, but most technically inclined folks should be able to get a ton out of it after you get past the initial learning curve.
The add-on actually download the new version and checks my config file against it. When something breaks, you get the error message so you can fix what's not working (happens once or twice a year for me, usually a config change), and relaunch the add-on to test again.