Home Assistant 2026.2 brings a notable terminology change: add-ons are now called Apps. The rename aims to reduce confusion for newcomers who previously struggled to distinguish between add-ons and integrations. The reasoning is straightforward: phones have apps, TVs have apps, and now Home Assistant has apps too. Apps are standalone applications running alongside Home Assistant, while integrations connect Home Assistant to devices and services.
The release also makes the Home Dashboard the default view for all new installations, replacing the legacy Overview. Long-time users who never customized their default view will receive a prompt to switch. The new dashboard includes a redesigned For You section that displays discovered devices and provides quick prompts to assign unassigned devices to areas. Visual updates include retiring the old blue top bar for a cleaner theme, and users can now set personalized themes directly from their profile settings.
Keyboard users will appreciate the completely redesigned Quick search, accessible via Cmd+K on macOS or Ctrl+K on Windows and Linux. The unified search lets you navigate anywhere, run commands, and find entities, devices, or areas from a single interface. Category filters at the top let you narrow results instantly, and existing single-key shortcuts (e for entities, d for devices, c for commands) still work.
The Open Home Foundation is building a community-powered device database to help users make informed purchasing decisions. Users can opt in through Home Assistant Labs to contribute anonymized device data. Early contributors have already submitted over 10,000 unique devices across 260 integrations. A new distribution card joins the dashboard toolkit, visualizing how values like power consumption are distributed across multiple entities as a proportional horizontal bar chart.
New integrations include Cloudflare R2 for backups, HDFury for HDMI video processing devices, NRGkick for EV chargers, and uHoo for indoor air quality monitors. Notable improvements to existing integrations include water heater support for ESPHome, podcast favorites in the Sonos media browser, camera support for Hikvision, and a pet chime option for Reolink doorbells. The Apps panel has been completely refactored and integrated into the Home Assistant frontend for improved performance.
