Somewhere in your Home Assistant setup, there are probably two automations doing the job of one. One turns the light on when motion is detected, and another turns it off when the room is empty again. Home Assistant 2026.10 finally gives you a clean way to merge them, and you don’t have to type a single trigger ID to do it.
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What Is New in Home Assistant 2026.10?
The Home Assistant 2026.10 beta is available now, and the final version lands on October 7th. This isn’t a flashy landmark release. It’s a release about making what you already have easier and nicer to use.
A New Vector Map With Zones and Activity History
Last month, the map in Home Assistant suddenly showed a watermark, so the team replaced the map provider. In 2026.10 that new map, based on OpenStreetMap, gets a serious upgrade.
The map is now drawn in vector graphics. Zoom in and everything stays sharp. Zoom out far enough and the map turns into a globe.
There’s also a new overview of people, zones and devices. When I click my Amsterdam zone, the map jumps straight to it. For my work zone, I also see a history of activity, so I can see when I arrived and when I left.
To set this up, click the pencil, then the edit button, and add the people, zones or devices you want to see. The same map is also on the zones page in the settings.
A Cleaner Profile Page
The profile page used to be one long page with everything on it. It’s now split into four sections: Appearance, Localization, This browser and Security.
Users can now also edit their own name and profile picture. Previously, only administrators could do that.
Triggered By: Trigger IDs Without the Typing
This is the highlight of the release for me. Trigger IDs let you use several triggers in one automation and then run different actions depending on which trigger fired. They have existed for years, but almost nobody used them. You had to type an ID for every trigger by hand, and that was always a hurdle for new users.
In 2026.10 you don’t have to do that anymore. Here’s the example I built in the video:
- Trigger 1: occupancy detected on my office motion sensor
- Trigger 2: occupancy cleared for five minutes on the same sensor
- An if-then building block with the new Triggered by condition
- If triggered by “occupancy detected”: turn the office lights on
- Else: turn the office lights off
When you add the Triggered by condition, Home Assistant lists the triggers you already defined. You tick the one you want, and that’s it.
What About Your Existing Automations?
Don’t worry, nothing breaks. Under the hood it’s still a trigger ID, and Home Assistant now manages it for you. All automations you already built with trigger IDs keep working. If you want to learn the basics first, check out [LINK: trigger ID tutorial].
Dashboard Cards That Only Show Up When You Need Them
The second big one is on the dashboard. Open a card, go to the Visibility tab, and you can now add conditions that decide when the card is shown.
In the video I tested three of them:
- Screen size: show a card only on mobile and tablet, or only on desktop and wide screens
- User: show a card only to specific users
- Time: show a card only between 8 AM and 5 PM on the days you pick
A green checkmark tells you whether a condition is met right now, which makes testing a lot easier.
Modbus and AI Get Their Own Settings Pages
Under Settings > Connectivity there’s a new Modbus section that lists all your Modbus connections. I added the new SolarEdge Modbus integration there, and it works well on my system.
Under Settings > System you’ll find a new AI option. It shows the MCP (Model Context Protocol) settings you need to connect an AI agent to Home Assistant. I use Claude, and after connecting it I asked it to add milk to my groceries list and to create an automation that wakes me up at 7 AM with a message on my speakers. Both worked. The setup is explained well in the documentation. You can also watch [LINK: AI integration video].
Smaller Improvements Worth Knowing
Use Device Name
One of my entities was called “Google Home 1277”. In the entity settings there’s now a “Use device name” toggle. One click, and the entity is named “Nest Mini Office”, just like the device.
Timer Actions and Presets
Timer cards get two new features: timer actions to start, pause, stop and restart a timer, and timer presets for fixed durations like 30 minutes or one hour.
New and Improved Integrations
New integrations include SolarEdge Modbus, which launches at platinum quality, Zonneplan and Gree Infrared. Existing integrations like Matter, Tuya, ESPHome, Reolink and Music Assistant got improvements too. Reolink can now control the pan and tilt lens on cameras that combine multiple lenses.
Also read the “farewell” list in the release notes before you update. Some integrations stop working in 2026.10.
One thing didn’t work for me. The new slider feature for input selects and select entities did nothing in the first beta. I expect that to be fixed in a later beta.
Conclusion
Home Assistant 2026.10 is a polish release, and a really good one. The Triggered by condition takes one of the most powerful automation tools in Home Assistant and finally makes it usable for everyone. Combined with the new card visibility conditions, automation and dashboard builders benefit most. That’s basically all of us.
The final release lands on October 7th. Check the farewell list before you update, and then start merging those paired automations into one.
