The Briefing
30 October 2026
A quiet Friday for stable releases. Core 2026.11.0b1 brings ZHA 2.4.2 and an Apple TV fix to the beta, and Home Assistant opens November as the Month of “What the Heck?!”. New guide: the best Z-Wave hub for Home Assistant.
01 · Home Assistant (beta)
Core 2026.11.0b1: ZHA 2.4.2, an Apple TV fix and a clearer SSL repair
What happened: The second beta of the November release, 2026.11.0b1, was tagged 29 Oct. It bumps ZHA to 2.4.2, pins srptools below version 2 to fix the Apple TV integration, recommends the Intermediate v6 profile and clarifies the HTTP SSL profile repair, and fixes the Shelly outbound WebSocket repair, Control4 setup retries, Withings polling with webhooks and the System Monitor IP sensor. Stable Core is still 2026.10.4.
Why it matters: If you're testing the beta for the new Marketplace (HACS inside Home Assistant, see yesterday's brief), update to b1. The final release is due with the 4 November release party. Don't run betas on a house you depend on.
- Primary source
- core 2026.11.0b1
02 · Community
November is the Month of “What the Heck?!” again
What happened: Home Assistant announced on 29 Oct that all of November is the Month of “What the Heck?!”: post what makes Home Assistant hard, confusing or annoying in the WTH category on the community forum. The project runs it every two years. This year it especially wants to hear from new and non-technical users and from people living in homes where someone else set Home Assistant up.
Why it matters: This is the cheapest way to get a pet peeve in front of the developers. If you run Home Assistant for a household, ask the people you live with what bugs them.
- Primary source
- Home Assistant blog
03 · Stable releases
No change: Core 2026.10.4, Supervisor 2026.10.5, HAOS 18.4, ESPHome 2026.10.1
What happened: stable.json still lists Core 2026.10.4 and Supervisor 2026.10.5 (symlink security fix). Home Assistant OS is 18.4 and ESPHome 2026.10.1.
- Primary source
- stable.json; ESPHome releases
04 · Zigbee & Z-Wave
No change: Z-Wave JS UI 11.25.2, Z-Wave JS 15.31.2, Zigbee2MQTT 2.14.2
What happened: Z-Wave JS UI is at v11.25.2, the Z-Wave JS driver at v15.31.2, Zigbee2MQTT at 2.14.2 and matter.js at 0.18.0. Choosing a Z-Wave controller? New today: the best Z-Wave hub for Home Assistant.
- Primary source
- zwave-js-ui; node-zwave-js; Zigbee2MQTT