Home Assistant 2026.11.0 was published on GitHub at 17:32 on November 4, 2026. The project's release notes call it "the biggest release we've ever shipped," and the numbers back that up: 38 new integrations and 5,827 pull requests from 557 people. The integration count is not the main story, though. For anyone who has spent years adding a community add-on store to their install by hand, the bigger news is that HACS is now part of Home Assistant itself. It appears as the Marketplace under Settings, and once you upgrade, the old way of installing it no longer works.

The release also includes a backward-incompatible change to entity naming, which the project describes as more than four years in the making. Because of that, it is worth reading the notes before you click update. Below is what changed, what happens on its own, and what you may need to fix by hand.

HACS becomes the Marketplace

The official release notes say HACS is now built in as the Marketplace under Settings, on every installation type, and that the Marketplace brings the existing HACS experience into Home Assistant and its regular release process. HACS creator ludeeus donated the project to the Open Home Foundation. Franck Nijhof, writing on frenck.dev on October 26, 2026, said the donation happened about a year and a half earlier. He also wrote that the team's main goal was to change as little as possible.

The HACS documentation describes how the transition works:

  • Starting with 2026.11, HACS ships inside Home Assistant as the Marketplace integration, found at Settings > Marketplace.
  • It uses the same catalog, the same repositories and the same hacs.json files, so repository authors have nothing to change.
  • Migration is automatic. Everything you downloaded with HACS stays installed and keeps getting updates. Custom repositories carry over, and so do update entities, with their existing entity IDs.
  • The HACS custom integration is removed during migration. It will get no new features.
  • Dashboard resources are now served from /local/community/. The old /hacsfiles/ path still works.
  • HACS cannot be installed on 2026.11 or later. Installations on 2026.10 or older can keep using HACS.

Nijhof summed it up as: everything migrates automatically, and nothing costs money.

What doesn't carry over

The HACS documentation says AppDaemon apps and Python scripts are no longer managed by the Marketplace. Their files stay where they are and keep working, but they will no longer receive updates through the catalog. If you installed AppDaemon apps or Python scripts through HACS, they are now unmanaged. Keeping them current is your job from here on, and the documentation says a repair notice tells you which ones are affected.

The documentation also points to a "Coming from HACS" section in the Marketplace documentation for what changes for templates and custom tools that use HACS. I did not read that page, so if your templates or scripts refer to the HACS integration by name, check that section before you upgrade rather than assuming they will keep working.

Entity naming: backward-incompatible on purpose

The second change likely to cause support threads is to entity naming. The release notes describe a complete rethink of how entities are named: you name a thing once, and Home Assistant adds the context where it helps. They say directly that it is a backward-incompatible change and that some names on dashboards will look different after updating. If you have dashboards that depend on exact entity display names, such as kiosk panels or wall tablets, check them after the upgrade.

The rest of the changelog

Several other items in the official release notes are relevant to makers:

  • Exclude from target. You can now exclude specific items from a target. For example, an action can apply to every light downstairs except the one in the kitchen.
  • Matter cameras with talk-back. Matter camera support arrives, and a new Labs preview feature, Two-way audio, adds a talk button to the live stream for cameras that support it. It is enabled in Settings > System > Labs, and for now it works when you open Home Assistant over HTTPS.
  • LoRaWAN support. You connect a LoRaWAN network server, ChirpStack or The Things Network, and Home Assistant offers the matching device integration, such as SenseCAP, when a supported device shows up. A new LoRaWAN page appears in Settings > Connectivity.
  • Local-drive backups and media. Backups and media can now be stored on local drives.
  • Zigbee Green Power. Zigbee Home Automation now supports Zigbee Green Power, which covers devices that run without a battery, such as wall switches.
  • 38 new integrations, a figure given in both the release notes and the GitHub release.

The release notes also mention a Community Day on Saturday, November 7 with 97 meetups around the world.

What It Means for Makers

Who it's for: anyone running Home Assistant who relies on community integrations, custom dashboard cards or themes from the HACS catalog. If you never installed HACS, the Marketplace now gives you the same catalog without the manual setup, on every installation type.

What it replaces: the separately installed HACS custom integration. According to the HACS documentation, standalone HACS gets no new features and cannot be installed on 2026.11 or later. Users who stay on 2026.10 or older keep using HACS.

What it enables: the community catalog straight from Settings, plus LoRaWAN, Matter cameras with a two-way audio preview, Zigbee Green Power batteryless devices, backups to local drives, and the ability to exclude items from a target.

Price and availability: Home Assistant 2026.11.0 was published on November 4, 2026. Both the release notes and Nijhof say everything in the Marketplace is free and that will not change. The sources give no price for the software itself.

Before you upgrade:

  • List any AppDaemon apps or Python scripts installed through HACS. They will keep running from disk but will not be updated by the Marketplace.
  • Check the "Coming from HACS" section of the Marketplace documentation if any of your templates or custom tools refer to HACS.
  • Expect some entity names on dashboards to change because of the naming rework.
  • Dashboard resource URLs under /hacsfiles/ will keep working. Resources are now served from /local/community/, and if you configured resources in YAML, a repair reminds you to change them.

Choosing to stay on 2026.10 is an option, since the HACS documentation says HACS keeps working there. The downside is that it keeps you off the core release train and on a custom integration that receives no new features.

Sources