Aqara has added an outdoor smart plug to its European range. The Outdoor Plug H2 EU (model SP-P06E) was announced on the Aqara forum on 20 October 2026, and Aqara's EU store lists it at €32.99. According to HomeKit News, the standard model can already be ordered from Amazon in Germany, France, Spain and Italy. There is also an RGB version with a mu
SwitchBot announced its Permanent Outdoor Lights on 20 October 2026: a 30-metre string of lights meant to stay under the eaves, a balcony or a pergola all year. It is on sale now from SwitchBot's website and Amazon at a list price of US$239.99 (CA$299.99). HomeKit News quotes US$189.99 with a coupon. SwitchBot has not announced European pricing.
The first release candidate of Home Assistant OS 18.4 came out on 20 October 2026 and is already offered on the beta channel. The developers call it a small bugfix and security release, mostly cleaning up kernel regressions introduced in 18.3. Two changes stand out: release images now come with a signature you can check, and the VLAN problem on Rea
The matter.js-based Matter Server, the controller behind the Matter integration in Home Assistant, reached version 1.5.0 on 20 October 2026. It moves to matter.js 0.18.0, which brings support for Matter 1.6.1, and adds a proper camera API with two-way audio. Home Assistant users do not get it automatically yet: the stable Matter Server app (9.2.0)
Baseus has put the PrimeSentinel U2 Pro Outdoor 3K Dual Camera on sale, an outdoor battery camera with a motorised spotlight that aims a beam at a detected person and keeps it on them as they move. The Verge reported on 20 October 2026 that it costs $269.99 on Amazon in the US and €269.99 in Europe, where sales started on 15 October. US prices diff
GE Lighting, which belongs to Savant, announced on 20 October 2026 that its battery-powered smart shades can now be ordered in custom sizes, with more fabrics and a second roll direction. The custom shades start at $299.99 and are sold only through shop.gelighting.com and Amazon.com. Other retailers keep selling the pre-sized versions. When we chec
Owners of the new Google Home Speaker have been finding that it pulls huge amounts of data from Google's servers while sitting idle. 9to5Google reported the problem on 19 October 2026 (US time) after several user reports over the previous week, and Google told the site that "a fix is already rolling out that should address this for users." Google h
Two fixes merged into Home Assistant Core on 20 October 2026 make the cost sensors of the Energy dashboard more reliable. One prices the energy used while Home Assistant was stopped, the other handles a meter that changes its unit. Both come from Petar Petrov (MindFreeze), were reviewed by Abílio Costa (abmantis), and went into the dev branch that
Every Matter device has to carry its own Device Attestation Certificate (DAC), which a controller checks during setup to confirm the device is genuine and certified. Getting those certificates and their private keys onto each unit is a job of its own for manufacturers. On 20 October 2026 STMicroelectronics launched ST MatterConnect, a service that
