Home Assistant not loading at homeassistant.local:80? New installs drop :8123 for port 80
If homeassistant.local:80 won't load in your browser, it's usually because your Home Assistant install has just switched to this new default: since Home Assistant's earliest releases, reaching the web interface has meant typing an address ending in :8123. In 2026.8, new installations run on port 80 by default instead, so the local address becomes something like homeassistant.local with no port number required. The setting now lives in Settings > System > Network, exposed directly in the UI rather than only in configuration.yaml.
This mainly affects fresh installs, but some existing installations may also be offered the switch. If that happens, Home Assistant asks you to confirm the change in the UI — and if you don't respond within five minutes, it automatically reverts back to port 8123. If your instance seems to disappear right after updating, don't panic: wait a few minutes, or try browsing to homeassistant.local on port 80 directly before assuming something's broken. Anyone running a reverse proxy, firewall rules, or port forwarding tied to 8123 should check those still line up once the update lands, particularly if you access your instance remotely — see our guide to segmenting smart home traffic on your network if you haven't isolated Home Assistant onto its own VLAN yet. If homeassistant.local won't load at all after updating — on either port — see our dedicated homeassistant.local not working troubleshooting guide for the mDNS and network fixes that cause this independently of the port change.
Can Matter doorbells trigger automations in Home Assistant 2026.8?
Matter doorbells now appear as event entities, so a button press can trigger a Home Assistant automation directly — a notification, a light turning on, or an announcement through a speaker. Previously, a doorbell could technically expose the same underlying Matter switch function as any other button, but Home Assistant didn't recognise the Doorbell device type specifically, so many Matter doorbells were excluded from event discovery even though the hardware supported it.
It's a narrow fix, but a useful one if you've paired a Matter-certified doorbell and found it showing up as a generic device with no way to react to a press. If you're shopping for a new doorbell rather than debugging an existing one, our best smart doorbells guide covers current UK options, and our Matter setup guide walks through pairing a Matter device into Home Assistant for the first time.
What happened to the "Advanced" label, and how do entity IDs work now?
Around 40 to 43 places across the interface previously labelled a setting or toggle as "Advanced" — that distinction has been removed, and "Developer Tools" has been renamed to simply "Tools". Everything is now presented as a normal setting rather than being tucked behind an extra flag, which is a usability change rather than a functional one: nothing that was previously hidden behind "Advanced" has changed in what it does, only in how it's labelled and surfaced.
Separately, a new Entity ID Format option under Settings > System gives you direct control over how new entity IDs are constructed going forward, rather than always following Home Assistant's default naming convention. This only affects entities created after you change the setting — existing entity IDs aren't renamed retroactively.
What's new in the redesigned Home Assistant Cloud page?
The Home Assistant Cloud settings page has been rebuilt from the ground up, replacing the old single settings screen with a clean overview and a dedicated space for each Cloud feature (remote access, voice assistants, backups). New subscribers get a guided setup walkthrough rather than a wall of toggles, and each feature now has its own settings page instead of everything living on one crowded screen.
Devices merged from multiple integrations are now kept separate per integration too — a change to how the device registry works under the hood. Previously, if two integrations reported the same physical device, Home Assistant could merge their entries and mix up properties like model numbers or serial IDs; in 2026.8 each integration keeps its own record, avoiding that conflict.
What are the 16 new integrations and template editor changes in 2026.8?
2026.8 ships 16 new integrations, including Dyson Infrared, Google Health, Midea appliances, and LiteLLM for conversation agents — alongside quality-scale upgrades across the board (2 integrations reaching platinum, 1 gold, 5 silver, 2 bronze). Reolink's integration picks up enhanced AI detection support, useful if you're running one of Reolink's cameras through Home Assistant rather than its own app.
The template editor has been redesigned with a resizable split view, making it easier to write and test Jinja2 templates side-by-side with their live output. Other smaller UX changes include better tap targeting on picture elements cards, weighted battery-level calculations on the energy dashboard, and a new "favourite" marker for cards to speed up dashboard building.
What Moon, vibration, Shelly and Z-Wave upgrades does 2026.8 add?
The Moon integration now supports automation triggers and conditions, so you can start an automation when the moon enters a new phase, or check the current phase as a condition before an action runs — useful for anyone running seasonal or tide-adjacent automations rather than a novelty on its own. A new vibration condition complements existing vibration triggers, letting automations check whether a sensor is currently detecting vibration before acting.
Shelly's integration also gains Enhanced Security, adding support for the HTTPS-only mode introduced in Shelly's firmware 2.0 for Gen2-and-newer devices, so those devices no longer need to fall back to unencrypted local HTTP. Home Assistant also adds support for Shelly circuit breakers in this release, with on/off control alongside output-state and safety-switch sensors. Z-Wave JS gets a new access control interface for managing device credentials directly from the Home Assistant UI, rather than needing a separate tool.
Should you update?
For most installations, yes — but check your network setup first if you rely on port 8123 being fixed. One other change worth knowing about before you update: 2026.8 also stops merging devices that are exposed through more than one integration into a single device entry. For most setups this is invisible, but if you use ESPHome, Shelly, Sonos, UniFi or similar devices alongside a network integration like TP-Link Omada, some automations that reference a device directly can silently stop firing after the split. See our guide to fixing broken automations after the 2026.8 device split if anything stops working post-update. The port 80 change is the one genuinely capable of catching people out, particularly anyone with firewall rules, port forwarding, or a reverse proxy configuration tied to the old port. Back up your configuration before updating regardless — see our backup and restore guide if that isn't already automated — and if your instance seems unreachable straight after updating, give the five-minute revert window a chance before troubleshooting further. Everything else in this release, from the Matter doorbell fix to the Shelly security upgrade, is additive and shouldn't require any changes to existing automations. iPhone and Apple Watch users should also note that 2026.8.0 drops Companion app support for iOS 15, watchOS 8 and macOS 11 — check your device is on a compatible OS version before you update. The follow-up 2026.9 beta is already out, adding security dashboard alerts and a Matter network map.
