Home Assistant 2026.8 says goodbye to 8123, while SmartThings goes behind a paywall

Headlines

• Western Australia MeetupKeiran from episode 89 reached out to us – following up from the 2026.7 episode. He’s moved from Sydney to Perth!If you live in or are just passing through in the Western Australian South West such as the Busselton and Margaret River regions and are into Home Assistant and similar tech, The Southwest Tech meetup has started running every 6 weeks or so in Busselton and would love for you to come through and join them for a chat. You can find the schedule and details at the link in the show notes on homeassistant.fm/HA245
• Smart things API chargesSamsung is ending free access to its SmartThings API in October 2026, introducing a $4.99 per month individual developer plan and new commercial tiers. This fee applies to direct API users and third-party platforms like Home Assistant

New Features

• Bye bye 8123Starting from 2026.8, New Home Assistant OS installations now default to port 80 instead of 8123.This means new users can go to http://homeassistant.local The goal is to remove the “magic number” from the onboarding experience.This applies to new Home Assistant OS installs only.Existing installs stay on 8123.Home Assistant Container / Docker installs are not affected.Existing users can manually change the port in the UI if they want.A fail-safe rollback exists: if you change the port and don’t confirm access within a few minutes, Home Assistant rolls back to the previous port.
• HTTP server settings are now configurable in the UISettings that have moved include
• “Advanced”, “Expert”, and “Developer” wording reducedHome Assistant is removing or renaming language that implies a feature is only for technical users.
• Home Assistant Cloud settings page redesign
• System-wide Entity ID formatting
• New automation triggers and conditions: Vibration and MoonHome Assistant now has automation support for vibration sensors.
• Integrations no longer share/merge the same device
• Template editor split viewThe template editor is gaining a split layout.
• Media browser search improvementsSearch in the media browser now works across more sources and integration-provided media.
• New loading screen animationThere is a new loading screen animation.
• Favourite cards in the dashboard card pickerThe dashboard card picker now lets users favourite/star cards.
• ReolinkNow has pre-siren entities and a motion device class on its AI-detection binary sensors.
• SwitchBotAdded support for the Candle Warmer Lamp and the RGBIC Neon Rope Light, plus fan and select controls for the Standing Fan. SwitchBot Cloud can now trigger their AI art frame by webhook too.
• RoborockGot plenty of love for the Q10, with a do-not-disturb switch, switch entities, a map image, and a volume control.
• MQTTNow has support for the Infrared platform so you can send infrared commands over MQTT.
• Portaineradded an update platform and container health status.
• OpenAI Conversationnow supports GPT-5.6.
• Unifi ProtectNow supports the USL smart sensors (USL Entry, USL Environmental, and USL GlassBreak) on UniFi Protect 7.2 and newer, and cameras gained Motion detection, Smart detection, and Sound detection event entities that fire for any detection the camera reports, such as a person, a package, or barking, with the detected type as an attribute.

New Integrations

• Fuelprices.dkTrack current fuel prices from Danish fuel companies in Home Assistant.
• GatusBring the health of your services into Home Assistant from your Gatus monitoring instance. Each monitored endpoint shows up as a binary sensor, so you can put service status on a dashboard or trigger automations when something goes down or comes back up
• Google HealthBring your health and fitness data into Home Assistant from Google Health and the Fitbit Web API. After you connect your Google account, you get sensors such as steps, distance, weight, and resting heart rate, and it can run alongside the existing Fitbit integration.
• Harbor SleepKeep an eye on your Harbor Sleep baby monitor from Home Assistant. The integration connects to the device on your local network and exposes sensors like temperature, Wi-Fi strength, and stream quality.
• Harman Luxury AudioControl network streamers built on the Harman Luxury Audio platform, such as the Arcam Radia ST5 and ST60, and equivalent JBL and Mark Levinson streamers. The integration talks to the device directly on your local network, so no cloud account is required.
• KarakeepConnect your self-hosted Karakeep bookmarking service to Home Assistant and keep track of your bookmark statistics.
• LED InfraredControl LED lights through any infrared emitter you already have set up in Home Assistant. It supports many branded and unbranded bulbs and strip controllers that use generic infrared remotes. Communication is one-way, so the integration uses assumed states.
• LiteLLMUse a LiteLLM proxy as a conversation agent in Home Assistant. LiteLLM puts a single OpenAI-compatible API in front of many model providers, so you can reach almost any model through one endpoint, hosted or self-hosted. Home Assistant creates a conversation agent for each model you configure.
• llama.cppUse a local llama.cpp server, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, as a conversation agent in Home Assistant.
• Midea LANBring devices that use the Midea protocol, such as air conditioners and air purifiers, into Home Assistant. The integration provides information on the connected devices and lets you control their main features.
• NeoPoolMonitor and manage pool controllers built on the NeoPool system, originally from Sugar Valley and sold under many brands like Hidrolife, Aquarite, and Oxilife. It talks to your controller locally over Modbus TCP, exposing water chemistry, filtration, and hydrolysis data with no cloud needed.
• ScorpionTrackFollow vehicles shared through a public ScorpionTrack location-share link on your Home Assistant map. The integration reads the shared vehicle feed and creates a device tracker for each vehicle, without needing your private account credentials.

Breaking Changes

• HTTP server YAML settings moved to the UISettings that were previously configured in YAML under the HTTP section are now moved to the UI. This may affect users with YAML-based HTTP, SSL/TLS, or reverse proxy configuration.
• Manual port changes can affect reverse proxy setups
• Device registry separation may require user actionDevices that were previously merged across multiple integrations are now split into separate devices.

Links Discussed

• https://swtech-au.github.io/southwest-tech/