Expose user-customisable Focus name through use of Focus Filters

[Lx]

Describe the feature

Since iOS doesn’t expose an API to retrieve the active Focus name directly, I’d like the iOS Home Assistant Companion App to support Focus Filters (per Apple’s Focus system) so a user can provide a custom string per Focus mode, which the app can then expose to Home Assistant.

Conceptually:

• The HA iOS app registers a Focus Filter configuration.
• For each Focus mode, the user can set a text value (e.g. Sleep, DND, Work, or any custom label).
• The HA iOS app then exposes that configured value to Home Assistant, for example as:
  • sensor.focus_label (state = the configured label for the currently active Focus, or empty/unknown when not in a Focus), and/or
  • an attribute on an existing Focus entity.

Proposed entity behaviour (one possible model):

• When no Focus is active:

  • binary_sensor.focus = off
  • sensor.focus_label = unknown (or unavailable, or empty)

• When any Focus is active:

  • binary_sensor.focus = on
  • sensor.focus_label = the user-configured label for that Focus (e.g. sleep, dnd, work)

This avoids needing a “real” Focus name API while still letting HA users reliably distinguish different Focus modes.

Please note that this feature request is distinct from #1198, which specifically requested the system-based focus name to be exposed and which was closed because the Apple API doesn't provide that ability. This request aims to achieve the same outcome via Apple’s Focus Filters: user-configured per-Focus data that the HA app can legitimately access and surface to Home Assistant.

Use cases

• Reliable Sleep automation. I want Home Assistant to react specifically to Sleep Focus (lights, announcements, HVAC). Right now I can only tell “some focus is active,” which isn’t enough.

• Robust transitions between focuses. Switching Sleep → DND keeps the generic “focus active” boolean true, so HA can’t infer that sleep ended. A per-focus label solves this cleanly.

• Avoid fragile iOS Shortcuts workarounds. The common workaround is using iOS Shortcuts to send a webhook on entering Sleep. Exiting Sleep Focus isn’t reliable for me, and I don’t want separate shortcuts for every other Focus. Focus Filters would remove the need for that.

• Dashboards with meaningful context. Displaying “Focus: Sleep” (or a user-defined label) is much more useful than “Focus: On”.

Examples

I imagine that this would work by the Home Assistant app showing in the Focus Filters area of any defined focus, and then a text field would be provided to the user to submit their desired label for this focus (to be emitted as e.g., a sensor.focus_label entity).

I don't think there'd need to be any change to any UI within the app itself (besides enabling or disabling the focus_label sensor).

Anything else?

• My device: iPhone 13 Pro
• My iOS version: 26.2.1
• My Home Assistant iOS app: 2026.1.1 (2026.1652)

[kevinsweijen]

Oh please yes, this would be such an amazing help!