A general reminder: Beta week is not designed to fully overhaul a new feature, but to identify bugs that may be introduced with the update.
If you have an issue, please let us know here! However, the developers are very active in the #beta channel of our Discord server during Beta - it’s good to hop in there if you can. To ensure things are addressed in a timely manner, be sure to also submit issues on GitHub in their proper space:
Apologies for the delay in this post - I was off yesterday for my son’s birthday and forgot to delegate this task to one of the mods. Here are this month’s Beta notes!
These are my cliff notes for this month’s release, in order of my excitement:
Smarter code editors! Throughout Home Assistant, the code editors now offer context-aware autocomplete for both YAML and Jinja2 templates.
The latest updates to purpose-specific automation triggers & conditions include automations finally understanding “for a while”. Durations I use a lot in my automations, so this was definitely something I was waiting for. There are also a few more additions to these - we’re nearing completion for this project to make automations feel more natural!
We’re introducing a new built-in dashboard, Maintenance, and adding the activity log as a sidebar to the Security dashboard.
Along with built-in dashboard improvements, we’ve also introduced a shortcut card, a tile card for media players, and new weather forecast features for tile cards.
You can now use serial ports over your network with ESPHome. No more need for your house to be lined with wiring in order to use serial ports.
New integrations this release are Denon RS232, Duco, EARN-E P1 Meter, Eurotronic Comet Blue, Fumis, Honeywell String Lights, Kiosker, Novy Cooker Hood, OMIE, Radio Frequency, Teleinfo, and Victron GX. Excellent work to everyone who got these in!
Noteworthy improvements to existing integrations - soooooo many improvements happened over the past month, it’s wild. I’m particularly excited about the OpenDisplay, SwitchBot, and WLED improvements, but check out the full list to see if any of your integrations are there.
Other noteworthy changes - mobile app notifications are now entities, the integration detail pages have a search bar, dashboard visibility conditions refer to the card’s own entity (meaning you don’t have to retype the entity ID) & they also now support attributes, shell commands can be reloaded without restarting, template vacuums have more context around rooms, and some new units were added for sensors.
The list of backward incompatible changes is small this release. Ring, Supervisor, and Webhook are part of these, so be sure to review the list if any of those impact you.
It’s been a quiet few days here in the beta thread, which I assume means either 2026.5 is remarkably stable or everyone is too busy soldering DB9 connectors for the new Serial port support.
Between Infrared in 2026.4 and RF and Serial over IP in 2026.5, the team is clearly on a mission to bridge every legacy protocol known to man. It got me thinking about the final frontier: those “stubborn” devices that have no remote, no serial port, and no soul. I’m looking at you, Oven Clock.
I’m predicting that in 2026.6, we’ll see the launch of the NAG Interface (Non-Automated Gadget).
Since Home Assistant can’t talk to your 1998 microwave, it will leverage the new Notification Facility to implement “Manual-Human-Automation” (MHA).
How the NAG Interface works:
Configuration: Add your “Dumb” device to your dashboard via YAML (or UI, if you’re into that).
Logic: Home Assistant realizes it has zero control over the hardware.
Execution: It utilizes the notification engine to NAG you via persistent mobile alerts, TTS announcements, and flashing lights until you physically get off the couch and change the clock yourself.
New Entity Class: nag_sensor.oven_clock
State: Passive-Aggressive
Attribute: user_guilt_level: 98%
Action: Persistent notifications until physical interaction is confirmed via a door sensor or internal resentment.
Finally, 100% local control (via your own two feet). Who needs Matter or Thread when you have a system that won’t stop pinging until the microwave time is correct after a power outage?
Great work on the Serial and Notification updates, devs! It’s one step closer to making the NAG protocol a reality.
For the oven clock, you put your oven on a smart plug and reset it when convenient regarding your oven clock behaviour upon power break: at 0:00 or at 12:00.
Just be careful with the max power of the oven vs the max power of the plug… (ok for microwave oven, not sure I would do that for a big oven…)
If the plug has power sensor, you can skip the automation if the oven is in use (good for ovens that reset time to 12:00…)
appart for this, your NAG concept is good and I like it !
It looks like the /hassio/system has finally been removed.
That’s a shame. It was particularly useful on test systems for getting an overview of the installed HA components and quickly restarting them.
I hope it comes back because there isn’t really an alternative yet.
b1 was just released and we’ve removed the forecast card features based on feedback from both the product team and users. They will return likely in a few releases.
I just discovered another random thing happening since updating to this beta…
My Unifi Protect integration is arming based on the status of my home assistant alarm. There are no automations or scripts setup to do this so I don’t understand how this is happening.
alias: '[Alarm] Paradox Arm HA Away Mode'
triggers:
- trigger: state
entity_id: sensor.paradox_alarm_status
to: 'armed_away'
action:
- action: alarm_control_panel.alarm_arm_away
entity_id: all
data:
code: REDACTED
nothing about Unifi Protect.
I’ve hunted through everything on my system and there is no logical cause for this. Any ideas? It only started after updating to the 2026.5.0b1 beta so the only thing that I can think of is that it’s related to the recent updates to this Integration which now includes the Alarm Manager entity.
I don’t have this so I’m just pulling straws and reading the RC docs.
It sounds like Unifi Protect just got a new alarm entity right? So wouldn’t it be expected that it would get picked up by all in your action? (I didn’t actually know you could use all so thanks for that tip!)
Here are this month’s Beta notes!
Throughout Home Assistant, the code editors now offer context-aware autocomplete for both YAML and Jinja2 templates.
This helps pave the way for the new device that our commercial partner, Nabu Casa, is working on. 
