ecobee, the smart thermostat maker owned by Generac since 2021, announced Home Summary on 29 October 2026. It is an opt-in feature in the ecobee app that uses AI to turn a day of activity from the thermostat, security devices and home energy system into one short written summary. The rollout to customers starts the same day.
Custom AI Behaviors, the natural-language automation feature Philips Hue announced at IFA in September, are now live. They arrive with version 6.4.0 of the Hue app, which Hueblog reported on October 29, 2026 as available in Apple's App Store, with the Google Play release expected soon. Last week Hue shipped Bridge Pro firmware that prepared the bri
A smart radiator thermostat replaces the head on a radiator valve with a small battery-powered motor that opens and closes the valve on a schedule or on command. It is a simple way to give each room its own schedule, and some models are now very cheap: IKEA's Thread-based LILJEBAGGE already sells in Sweden for 199 kronor, and heise reports a German
Most wall switches with a colour screen need a neutral wire, because the display has to be powered all the time. Xiaomi's new Smart Display Switch 2, listed in China on 28 October 2026, tries to get round that. It works with or without a neutral, and in single-wire installations it runs the screen from a built-in energy store. Crowdfunding opens on
WLED is open-source firmware that turns an ESP32 or ESP8266 into a controller for addressable LED strips. It gives you a web interface, an app, effects, presets and a JSON API that all work on your local network, with no cloud account. This guide builds a basic controller for a 5 V WS2812B strip on an ESP32. It covers wiring, flashing with the web
Scenes, scripts and automations that still turn off a Hue light effect with effect: "None" will break in Home Assistant 2026.11. Change #188867 by Martin Hjelmare, merged into the development branch on 27 October 2026 and marked as a breaking change, removes the compatibility mapping that kept that value working.
Most split air conditioners and many portable units are controlled by an infrared remote. If the unit has no Wi-Fi module, or its Wi-Fi only works through the manufacturer's cloud app, an ESP32 with an IR LED can take over the remote's job. ESPHome has a family of climate platforms that do more than replay recorded buttons: they build the full IR c
Automations that react to a tap or swipe on Nanoleaf touch panels through a device trigger will stop working in Home Assistant 2026.11. Change #188656, merged into the development branch on 26 October 2026, deletes the Nanoleaf device trigger platform and is marked as a breaking change.
Two ESPHome changes merged over the weekend deal with climate devices that do not work in Celsius. The first, by Johan Henkens (jhenkens), reviewed by bdraco and merged on 25 October 2026, adds a unit_of_measurement option to the template climate and the template water heater and fixes how visual temperatures are converted on platforms that report
