Release update Ecosystems
Home Assistant 2026.5: what's new, what breaks
Home Assistant 2026.5 gives radio-frequency gear the same first-class treatment as Zigbee and Z-Wave, adds a maintenance dashboard for battery tracking, and reworks automation triggers into something you can actually read. A handful of breaking changes worth a quick check before you update.
Part of Home Assistant updates, our monthly release series
Every release
2026.5 Released 6 May 2026
Update, after one check The headline: radio-frequency devices, motorised blinds, garage doors, ceiling fans, get the same first-class support Zigbee and Z-Wave already had.
In this release 6 smaller wins · 12 integrations added · 1 removed · 5 breaking changes
Check first Person & device tracker triggers · Ring doorbell events · Webhook local_only · Supervisor actions · pilight
Affected only if you use one of these. None in your setup? You're clear to update.
The headline feature: radio frequency joins Zigbee and Z-Wave as a first-class protocol
Home Assistant has supported infrared for years, but proprietary radio-frequency (RF) devices, the blinds, garage doors, ceiling fans and wireless wall switches that never spoke Zigbee or Z-Wave, have always needed a workaround. 2026.5 changes that with a proper Radio frequency platform, built the same way Zigbee and Z-Wave already work.
You'll need an RF bridge to use it: an ESPHome device running a CC1101 module (around $10-15 landed) or an existing Broadlink RM4 Pro. Two integrations ship using the new platform on day one, Honeywell String Lights and the Novy Cooker Hood, with more expected as device makers pick it up.
It pairs with another quiet but useful change: Home Assistant's serial handling moved to a modern async driver (serialx, replacing the old pyserial), and ESPHome gained a serial proxy so a serial-connected device, like the new Denon RS-232 integration, can be reached over the network instead of needing a cable run to the machine running Home Assistant.
Six smaller wins
The changes most people will notice day to day. Scan the tags for the areas you use.
Dashboards
Maintenance dashboard
A built-in dashboard that finds every battery entity in the house automatically, groups it by area, and surfaces the ones running low. No more hunting through the entity list before a battery run.
Dashboards
Shortcut card
One-tap navigation to a dashboard, a URL, Assist voice control, or a custom action. Useful on a wall-mounted tablet where you want a home button that actually does something specific.
Automations
"For a while" triggers everywhere
Purpose-built duration support lands across triggers and conditions, so "motion inactive for 15 minutes" is a first-class option instead of a template workaround.
Mobile app
Notifications as entities
Mobile app notification targets are now entities, so you can group multiple phones and send one automation action to all of them instead of duplicating notify calls.
Vacuums
Room-by-room cleaning for template vacuums
Template vacuums now support room and segment cleaning, and the more-info dialog for vacuums and lawn mowers gets state-driven animations and area mapping.
Templates
Reworked template docs and editor autocomplete
Template documentation gets 14 new pages and over 200 function references with runnable examples, and the code editor now offers context-aware autocomplete for template functions, entities, devices and areas.
Integrations: 12 in, 1 out
Removals matter more than additions, because a removal can break an automation or dashboard that references it. They're listed first, with what to do about each.
Removed in 2026.5 1 integration
| Integration | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| LANnouncer | Discontinued | Removed after its companion Android app was delisted; deprecated since 2025.10. There's no direct replacement, remove any automation or notify call referencing it. |
Added in 2026.5 12 integrations
Denon RS-232DucoEARN-E P1 MeterEurotronic Comet BlueFumisHoneywell String LightsKioskerNovy Cooker HoodOMIERadio frequencyTeleinfoVictron GX
Breaking changes
5 this month, all narrow. If the summary at the top already cleared you, nothing below applies to your setup.
Breaking changes · check before you update Most setups are unaffected
Person & device tracker triggers
The "entered home" and "left home" triggers, and the "is home" / "is not home" conditions, are removed from Person and Device Tracker.
What to do: rebuild these automations with a standard state trigger or condition (state changes to home / not_home) instead.
Ring doorbell events
Ring doorbell events now emit a standardised "ring" event type instead of the old "ding".
What to do: check any automation that triggers on the ding event and update it to ring.
Webhook local_only
The local_only option on webhooks now requires a strict boolean. Truthy values like "1" or "yes" no longer work.
What to do: update any YAML config using string values for local_only to true or false.
Supervisor actions
Supervisor actions now correctly raise an error on failure, where they previously failed silently.
What to do: add continue_on_error: true to any script or automation that relied on the old silent-fail behaviour.
pilight
The pilight integration has been disabled due to a setuptools/pkg_resources dependency issue.
What to do: if you relied on pilight for RF devices, look at migrating to the new native Radio frequency platform instead.
Should you update?
Our verdict Update, after one check
Update for the RF support alone if you've got motorised blinds or a garage door that never quite fit into Home Assistant. It's a genuinely useful platform and the Maintenance dashboard is worth having on its own.
The one thing to do before you update: search your automations for "entered home" or "left home" triggers. If you use presence-based automations (and most people do), 2026.5 removes those triggers outright, so anything relying on them will silently stop firing until you rebuild it with a standard state trigger. Everything else on the breaking list, Ring's event rename, the Webhook boolean tightening, Supervisor's error handling, is a smaller, contained fix if it affects you at all.
Source: home-assistant.io
Frequently asked questions
Do I need new hardware to use the RF support in Home Assistant 2026.5?
Yes, an RF bridge. Either an ESPHome device running a CC1101 module (roughly $10-15) or a Broadlink RM4 Pro you already own. Home Assistant itself doesn't include RF hardware.
Will my presence-based automations break after updating to 2026.5?
Only if they use the old "entered home" / "left home" triggers or "is home" / "is not home" conditions on a Person or Device Tracker entity. Those are removed in this release. Rebuild them with a standard state trigger before you update, and they'll keep working.
What happened to the pilight integration?
It's disabled in 2026.5 because of a dependency issue in the underlying library. If you were using pilight for RF devices, the new native Radio frequency platform is the better long-term option anyway.
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