Home Assistant 2026.5 introduces RF and RS-232 Control

Headlines

• Shoutout to our new members Jason and Griff, your support means a lot! Shoutout to our executive producers Jason and Benny
• State of the Open HomeBuilding in the open Roadmap in the open Every 2 months the priorities are checked Goal is to make things more approachable Easter eggs on product pages and State of the Open Home page. For the ZBT enter the Konami code For the voice PE and ZWA, click all the circles you can findPrototype Project Blast: IR and RF proxy to be the next hardware release from Nabu CasaMerchandise is on sale
• Ubisys joins works with Home AssistantThis German company has been dedicated to smart home automation for more than 20 years, and offers a range of Zigbee devices designed to help you retrofit your home
• 1,650 PR’s contribute to this release

New Features

• Serial (RS232) and RF Support added to Home Assistant💬 mercian on YouTubeI still have a 4K Blu-ray player and an old TV in a bedroom that I’d like to integrate using IR. BTW older LG TVs can have discrete volume control via RS232 but I don’t think via IR. You sent a “Set Volume” command followed by a value.You can now add supported devices using serial connections. For example you can add a Denon receiver using RS232. When you select the RS232 type of connection, Home Assistant will list USB devices connected to your Home Assistant’s Host Instance. Home Assistant will be smart enough to highlight USB devices such as Zigbee/Zwave radios which are not applicable or recommended.On the RF front…💬 TempDemp on YouTubeI have Broadlink, which integrates well with my Denon AVR , LG Oled , A/c IR remotes . The process of integration of these remotes iR into HA is a painful process. Would the “New” Infrared in HA create the necessary “integration” of Broadlink and the various remotes defined there into HA ?Broadlink RM4Pro is supported for RF and IR Proxies! Any Broadlink RM4 Pro you may already own can be reused as an RF transmitter for the new integrations. The RM4 Pro is the only model in the RM4 line with RF support, and it’s limited to the 433 MHz band. Any ESPHome device with a compatible sub-GHz transmitter can act as your home’s RF bridge. Most modules cover all common sub-GHz bands (315, 433, 868, and 915 MHz), so a single transmitter can talk to a wide range of devices. Nabu Casa working on a device to support IR and RF, “Project Blast”.In 2026.5, Honeywell String Lights and the Novy Cooker Hood can be controlled using RF.
• Dashboard Strategies💬 itsallasimulationman on YouTubeI recently added a card to my main dashboard that displays devices with low batteries. When the battery status returns to normal (above 20% capacity), then they are no longer displayed. It’s very effective.
• DashboardYou can now change what is included in summaries the dashboard, add shortcuts to anything (including developer tools!)To support this a new shortcut card type is now added, which you can use in your own Dashboards.There’s also been some love to the security dashboardsThere’s a new Maintenance dashboard, allowing you to see battery status of devices.💬 On a related UI note, toggles have been replaced throughout the UI with a new modern style. The toggles are keyboard friendly, meaning you can tab into them and use the arrow keys to flip them
• Weather Tile CardsCan now show things like forecast with things like graphs for temperature or rain for hourly forecast
• Dashboard VisibilityIf you use conditions to hide or show cards on your dashboards, there’s some new improvements!State and numeric state visibility conditions get a new Current entity option that automatically follows whichever entity the card is bound to. No more re-typing entity IDs, and your card stays reusable.State and numeric state visibility conditions on cards can now check an entity attribute instead of just the state, catching up with their automation counterparts.
• VacuumsNow have more info panels, with nice little automations when Vacuums are cleaning or returning to dock. Also available for lawn mowers
• Purpose Specific TriggersStill a labs-enabled feature, there’s more updates including the ability for triggers to have the “for” case added. Ie “when motion has not been detected for 5 minutes”. For conditions, this has been added to motion and cover entities.There’s also the ability to automate when something starts playing, pauses, turns on, or turns off. Ie for movie mode!Timers also get started, paused, restarted, cancelled, and finished.
• MQTTThere’s three new platforms that can be integrated using MQTT, including date, datetime and date entities.
• MatterNow supports radon sensors
• ESPHomeWater heater entities now support away mode, matching what physical and smart water heaters in your home offer.
• ShellyTilt and rotation binary sensors for the Shelly Cury, and the Shelly Wall Display now exposes a media player entity for built-in audio playback
• SonosGets a couple of nice updates, including two new switches for TV Autoplay and Ungroup on Autoplay, giving you fine-grained control over how home theater speakers behave when the TV turns on.There’s also a much better group/ungroup interface on the UI
• Apple TVYou can now send text input to Apple TV devices
• WLEDNow supports per-segment freezing, letting you pause effects on individual LED segments.
• HTML Push NotificationsHas a new event platform, a new html5.send_message entity action, and the integration is now correctly classified as a notification service.
• Mobile App NotificationsThe Mobile app integration now exposes a notification entity for each of your devices, on top of the existing notify actions. That means you can group your phones and tablets together using the regular group helper right from the user interface
• ImmichPhotos from Immich can be sent to an e-ink display thanks to OpenDisplay.The media source now exposes your favourite collection, making it easy to pull starred photos straight into your dashboards
• SubaruVehicles that support remote start now have a dedicated start/stop button entity
• London UndergroundNow reports status for the Trams and the IFS Cloud Cable Car as well
• Unfi ProtectNow exposes an alarm control panel.

New Integrations

• DucoMonitor and control your Duco demand-controlled ventilation system locally from Home Assistant. Track CO₂, humidity, and other sensor data, and adjust ventilation per zone
• EurotronicIntegrate your Eurotronic Comet Blue (and similar) Bluetooth radiator thermostats
• KioskerKisoker is a iOS app similar to Fully Kiosk for Android. You can see things including battery levels, charging state, last motion, ambient light, screensaver and blackout state. Apple devices do have restrtictions, so you can’t control the screen or sleep state
• FumisBring your Fumis-based pellet stove into Home Assistant through the Fumis online service. Monitor your room temperature, set a comfortable target temperature, and turn your stove on or off.
• TeleinfoRead electricity consumption data from French Linky smart meters and older electronic meters
• VictronConnect your Victron Energy GX devices, like the Cerbo GX, Venus GX, and Color Control GX, to Home Assistant over MQTT. Get real-time monitoring and control of your Victron system, including inverters, solar chargers, battery systems, grid meters, and EV chargers

Breaking Changes

• RingThe Ring doorbell event entity now emits the standardized ring event type instead of the legacy ding. This change aligns Ring with the new doorbell event standard, so the entity can be used seamlessly with the new purpose-specific automation triggers and conditions.
• Webhooks in YAMLThe local_only option on webhooks must now be a proper boolean (true or false). Previously, other truthy values like 1 or “yes” were silently accepted. This brings the option in line with the rest of Home Assistant.If you have webhooks configured in YAML with non-boolean local_only values, update them to use true or false.