As Home Assistant users, we’re spoiled by the project’s clockwork release cycle that sees a new major release arrive every month without fail.But not all updates are built equal, and November 2026 brings a very special community effort into the core release.Add How-To Geek on Google Add as Preferred Source Follow on Google Discover Introducing the Home Assistant Marketplace Community add-ons have a new home Close The Home Assistant Marketplace makes its debut in Home Assistant 2026.11, bringing every feature of the Home Assistant Community Store (HACS) into the main release without the need to install anything extra.
For those unaware, the Home Assistant Community Store is an optional enhancement for Home Assistant 2026.10 and earlier that makes it easy to install and manage community-created add-ons.The whole Home Assistant project is open source and relies on contributions from the community (along with a handful of Open Home Foundation full-time employees), but not all integrations make it into the core list that appears when you click the “Add integration” button.In the past, HACS filled the gap The HACS project was donated to the Open Home Foundation by project founder ludeeus, and the team has finally gotten around to integrating it into the main release and rebranding it.
The Home Assistant Marketplace can do everything that HACS could, including installing custom integrations, themes, dashboard cards, and templates.You can also add custom repositories, which are little more than GitHub repo links, in order to expand the list of items available within Marketplace.Smoother installs and integration management No more restarts required You don’t need to do anything special to “upgrade” to Marketplace if you’re already a HACS user, just install Home Assistant 2026.11 and visit Settings > Marketplace to peruse.
Unlike HACS, which required different installation methods depending on whether you used a containerized version of Home Assistant or not, Marketplace works with all Home Assistant installs.The biggest improvement made centers on downloading new items from Marketplace.With HACS, adding a custom integration involved first downloading it, restarting Home Assistant, and then visiting the Settings > Devices & services menu to add the integration like you would any other.
This process has now been streamlined so that as soon as you add an item from Marketplace, you’re immediately taken to its setup workflow.Projects also get a new update entity, which means that updates for Marketplace items now appear alongside your other Home Assistant updates.There are some other nice improvements, like better filtering of sources, easier sorting, improved repository management, and interface improvements like more visible branding.
It’s also worth noting that this move hasn’t “sanitized” the HACS experience.You’ll need to agree to a disclaimer about the risks of downloading community integrations that haven’t been tested or reviewed.This is still what separates custom integrations that were previously limited to HACS from the core integrations included in every release.
Not everyone likes upgrading to bleeding edge Home Assistant updates, preferring instead to wait for .1 or later releases.HACS will continue to work as normal on older versions, but will not receive any updates.Some more highlights A packed release As is customary with each new Home Assistant release, there are many more improvements to be found.
One worthy shoutout is the ability to exclude items from targets.A target can be a floor of your home or a particular label you set up, and the feature makes it easy to keep your automations and scripts working when adding or removing devices.You can now exclude specific items from a target using the same interface that is used to define the target.
The new “Triggered by” filter will be particularly handy in finding out why a device or automation did something unexpected.Matter 1.5 cameras are also now supported, as is a new two-way audio link for supported cameras (right now, that’s limited to Reolink’s Matter lineup).Other improvements include copying and pasting dashboard sections, the ability for dashboard sections to populate themselves, more cards and badges, an alert card that no longer relies on YAML, easier color-switching on light tiles, context-aware naming, and more.
There’s even more to love about Home Assistant 2026.11, including a long list of brand new integrations and improvements to older ones.It’s hard to see how the team will be able to outdo this release in December’s final major update of the year.Read the full release notes on the Home Assistant blog.
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