Home Assistant, the open-source smart home server, just received another significant update. Home Assistant version 2026.3 is now rolling out with more automation improvements, wake words for Android devices, and much more.
This is a lighter release in terms of new features, as the development team was focused on “getting the amazing contributions from our community reviewed, polished, and merged.” That includes many bug fixes, the ability to use Continue on error in the automation editor, and plenty of under-the-hood improvements.
There are still some major changes, though. You can now send robot vacuums to clean one or more specific areas on demand, after you match the vacuum’s detected segments to Home Assistant areas. It’s already supported by the Matter, Ecovacs, and Roborock integrations, and that should expand to more devices in future releases.
The blog post explained, “If your vacuum’s internal segment layout ever changes (for example, after remapping in the manufacturer’s app or the vacuum rediscovering its environment), Home Assistant will notice. A repair issue will alert you that the segments have changed, so you can update your mapping and make sure everything stays in sync.”
Home Assistant 2026.3 also has some improvements to the Energy dashboard. The ‘Now’ view can show you real-time power consumption, gas flow rate, and water flow rate without going into other menus. The tabs have also been reorganized into Electricity, Gas, and Water, and energy bar chart tooltips now include the day of the week.
If you have the Home Assistant Companion app on an Android device, it can now use wake words like “Okay Nabu,” “Hey Jarvis,” and “Hey Mycroft” before you say a command. All voice processing happens locally on your device, using the microWakeWord engine. However, this requires continuous microphone access and CPU usage, so you might want to use automations to only enable it while you’re at home.
Finally, there are some new integrations to check out. Home Assistant can now connect to Hegel Music Systems amplifiers, Hypontech solar inverter systems, Indevolt energy storage devices, Zinvolt batteries, Ghost blogs, and even the New York City MTA for subway and bus arrival predictions. OneDrive for Business and iDrive e2 buckets have been added as Home Assistant backup locations.
If you already have Home Assistant, the update should appear in the system dashboard. You can set up a fresh install with the instructions on the Home Assistant website.
Source: Home Assistant
