Home Assistant works with a huge number of smart home devices, but it doesn't work with everything.If you have smart home tech that you've not been able to connect to Home Assistant in the past, it's worth checking again.Related Home Assistant Is the Answer to Your Smart Home's Biggest Issues Command a vast range of devices, with or without an internet connection.
Posts 4 By Tim Brookes Home Assistant adds integrations at a crazy pace Every release adds more options Home Assistant releases updates on a monthly cycle, with smaller patch releases during the month.Each monthly update adds new features to Home Assistant, and these always include new integrations that have been officially added to Home Assistant.There are usually a significant number of integrations added each month.
For example, the 2026.4 release included 14 new integrations, including Infrared, UniFi Access, WiiM, and Autoskope.Over the past 12 months, there have been no fewer than four new integrations in any release, with some months adding as many as 17.This doesn't include custom components that you can install via HACS that are not officially supported integrations.
Many of these custom components allow you to connect smart home devices that aren't supported by Home Assistant integrations, and some custom components go on to become official integrations.Home Assistant Green Dimensions (exterior) 4.41"L x 4.41"W x 1.26"H Weight 12 Ounces Home Assistant Green is a pre-built hub directly from the Home Assistant team.It's a plug-and-play solution that comes with everything you need to set up Home Assistant in your home without needing to install the software yourself. $179 at Amazon Expand Collapse Infrared support opens up a huge number of old devices If it has an IR remote, there's a good chance you can control it Some new Home Assistant integrations only allow you to connect a limited number of smart devices from a specific brand.
There are some, however, that open up access to a whole swathe of smart home devices.One such example is the Infrared integration, which was added in Home Assistant 2026.4.The Infrared integration adds native support for controlling IR devices such as TVs or AC units using Home Assistant.
In the past, to do so, you needed to use manual workarounds or custom integrations, but Home Assistant now has a dedicated native platform for infrared control.It means that you can turn cheap ESP32 devices into infrared proxies that can send and receive IR signals and control them directly from Home Assistant.For example, you can send commands to your TV as if you were pressing the buttons on your remote, and use them to turn on the TV, change the channels, turn up the volume, and more.
Currently, there's only an LG Infrared integration that will let you control an LG straight out of the box, but for other IR devices, you can use the remote.learn_command action to learn the commands that your remote sends out, and the remote.send_command action to send these commands from your IR proxy.It means that in theory, you can add almost any IR device that uses a remote to Home Assistant.Bluetooth and Matter support continues to develop Support for all the major protocols Infrared devices aren't the only devices that you can add to Home Assistant.
There's support for all the major protocols, including those that you might not expect.For example, if you have Bluetooth smart devices around your home, you may assume that you can't hook these up to Home Assistant due to the limited range of Bluetooth.However, you can also use ESP32 devices as Bluetooth proxies and place them near your Bluetooth devices.
These proxies can receive commands over Wi-Fi from Home Assistant and send out the relevant Bluetooth signals to your Bluetooth devices, controlling them as if they were already within Bluetooth range of your Home Assistant server.Home Assistant also has mature support for Matter, and continues to add new Matter features.Home Assistant 2026.4 included an update that allows you to manage users and PIN codes for Matter-compatible smart locks directly from within Home Assistant.
If you have Matter devices, Home Assistant is a great way to connect and control them.How to check if your existing devices are supported Auto-discovery does a lot of the work for you If you want to see if a smart home device you own will work with Home Assistant, there are a few things you can do.The first is to see if the device is automatically discovered.
Power the device on and ensure it's connected, and you may find that it appears in Home Assistant's list of discovered devices.If it isn't, the next step is to search for an official integration.On the Integrations page, click the Add Integration button and type the brand of your device to see if any results appear.
If they do, install the integration and follow the setup instructions to connect your device.Subscribe to the newsletter for Home Assistant integration tips Curious if your devices will work with Home Assistant? Subscribe to the newsletter for hands-on guidance on new integrations, infrared, Bluetooth and Matter compatibility, plus practical setup and troubleshooting tips to help connect your gear.Get Updates By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
You can unsubscribe anytime.If there's no official integration, you can try HACS.This is a store of community-created custom components, many of which allow you to connect specific brands of smart home devices.
If you can't find a custom component in the HACS store, try searching online, as some require manual installation.If nothing works, you can try the Home Assistant community forums.You may find that someone is working on a solution.
Check your devices before you replace them Home Assistant supports a huge range of smart home devices, and the list continues to grow.Before replacing old gear or assuming a device won't work, it's worth checking Home Assistant again.Support may have arrived since the last time you checked.
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