Home Assistant 2026.9 in review: the Matter map, a smarter Security dashboard and Modbus without YAML
Before 2026.11 lands, a catch-up on the September release: the features worth turning on and the breaking changes that can still bite if you skipped a month.
By Andrew Ingleton · Published
Home Assistant 2026.10 (see our summary) got most of the attention last month, but the September release, 2026.9 ("There's room on this bus"), contains several changes worth knowing about, especially if you update only now and then. Here is a practical round-up based on the official release notes.
Features worth trying
- Matter network map. A "Show map" button displays Thread and Wi-Fi devices, border routers and signal strength. It pairs well with the new Matter server covered in Home Assistant's new Matter server.
- Security dashboard. An "Active alerts" section appears only when something needs attention, with Alert or Warning levels, and a Favourites section pins important entities to the top.
- History and Activity. Both pages share one filter panel (floors, areas, devices, entities, domains, device classes, integrations) that remembers your choices. Selecting an Activity row shows the chain of causes, such as a person, schedule or automation, with millisecond timestamps. That is very handy for debugging automations.
- Modbus without hand-written YAML. Integrations that already know a device's protocol can be set up from the interface. The first are Fronius (Modbus TCP), Sofar Inverter Modbus and Flexit.
- Sun automations. Golden hour, blue hour, midnight sun and polar night conditions and triggers.
- Connectivity and storage. A new Serial panel groups ports by use and status, MQTT has its own settings page with a packet publishing tool, and network mounts show usage bars that turn amber above 85% and red above 95%.
- Accessible charts. Line and bar charts can be navigated by keyboard and screen reader and can play a tone for each data point.
Home Assistant Cloud notes
Failed logins now show the real source IP address instead of 127.0.0.1, which makes banning practical. Cloud is being renamed, as explained in Home Assistant Cloud becomes Home Assistant Link.
Breaking changes to check
| Area | What changed |
|---|---|
| KNX | Exposes no longer send their first value to the bus. Enable "Send on initialization" (send_on_init: true) to keep the old behaviour. |
| LLM tools | Tool names now carry a domain prefix, such as homeassistant__GetLiveContext. Update custom prompts that name tools. |
| Update entity | Installing, skipping or clearing skipped updates now needs an administrator; scripts run by non-admins will fail. |
| Z-Wave JS | Lock user and credential actions require an administrator. |
| UniFi Protect | Needs version 7.2.105 or newer. |
| Flexit Nordic (BACnet) | The fireplace mode switch is gone; use climate.set_preset_mode with fireplace. |
| Vacuum | The deprecated battery_level property is removed; custom integrations need a separate battery sensor. |
| Persistent notifications | Updating one now fires updated rather than added. |
| VLC | The VLC integration has been removed (VLC via Telnet is unaffected). |
New integrations
New additions include Samsung TV via ExLink, Tonewinner AV processors, several EV chargers (Besen, NexBlue, Silla Prism), ISEO Argo Bluetooth smart locks, LibreNMS and a Hot Spring spa. Shelly gained camera support and a privacy switch, and UniFi Protect can now be set up with just an API key.
What to do
If you are on 2026.8 or earlier, read the breaking changes above before updating, take a backup, and update one release at a time. The next release is due in early November; the latest patch at the time of writing is 2026.10.4.
Source: Home Assistant release notes for 2026.9 (2 September 2026). The notes are very long; this is a selection, not a full list.
