Home Assistant 2026.2: New Home Dashboard, Apps & our CES2026 wrap

Headlines

• CES 2026
  Shoutout to some friends we got to hangout with, Justin, Trevor and Kyle from Apollo Automation, TJ and Gavin from the HomeTech.fm Podcast
  
  Some things we saw
• State of the Open Home
  April 8th – Utrecht Netherlands – In Person selling tickets
  
• Open Home Foundation Device Database
  Allows users to opt-in to share device information to the Open Home Foundation
  
  Threshold – 50 instances must report the device before it will be included
  
  Blog released before 2026.2 release
  
  MQTT, ESPHome and custom integrations are ignored for now
  
• Cloud Strikes Again
  Google Home had a major outage in January 2026, with users reporting their lights and switches being marked as unavailable and uncontrollable.
  
  

New Features

• Home Dashboard
  The Home Dashboard is now the default dashboard layout for Home Assistant. It is not a dashboard, but the home page that the Home Assistant team has decided is a good base-dashboard for Home Assistant.
  
  It is enabled by default for users who have not changed their dashboard.
  
  The idea being this should be good enough for users that don’t want to build out their own Dashboard.
  
  ”Summaries area” will show dynamic data
  
  
• Keyboard Shortcuts
  CMD/CTRL K now brings up a new command panel allowing you to navigate, control devices in a unified search
  
  e and c will still work and will open up the new command panel with the right filter
  
• Developer Tools Moving
  To the settings area
  
• New Matter Dashboard
  
• Home Assistant OS Add-ons now called Apps
  The Apps panel will now be faster
  
• Purpose specific conditions and triggers
  Calendar Triggers
  Person Triggers
  Vacuum Triggers
  Conditions for Locks, Fans, Lawn Mowers, Media Players. Climate, Vacuums…a lot
  
• Distribution Cards
  Allows you to see what is using the most power in a nice stacked column chart
  
• Heading Buttons
  In the dashboards you can now have an action button in the UI that can do something.
  
• Music Assistant now supports pre-announce custom sounds
  
• Sonos now shows Podcast favourites in the media browser
  
• Hikvision
  Now has camera support! You can view snapshots and streams from your Hikvision cameras and NVRs directly in Home Assistant
  
• Portainer
  Now has a prune images button and state sensor!
  
• Bosch & Siemens Home Connect
  You can now start dishwasher programs from Home Assistant
  
  
  

New Integrations

• Cloudflare R2
  Back up your Home Assistant to Cloudflare R2. R2 offers a free tier storage with no egress fees.
  
• Green Planet Energy
  Real-time dynamic electricity pricing data from German renewable energy provider Green Planet Energy.
  
• HDFury
  Control and monitor your HDFury HDMI video processing devices, like the VRROOM and Diva. Manage HDMI port selection, operation modes, audio muting, and monitor input/output signal status.
  
• NRGkick
  Mobile EV Charger available in Europe
  
• Prana
  Heat recovery ventilation system from the Ukraine. They have customers in 42 countries.
  
• uHoo
  Indoor air quality monitors to track temperature, humidity, CO2, PM2.5, and other air quality metrics. Also includes proprietary health indices for virus and mold risk.
  

Breaking Changes

• Groups
• Tuya
  Duplicate HVACMode have been converted to presets. You may need to adjust service calls from set_hvac_mode to set_preset_mode in your automations or scripts.