Home Assistant 2026.8 has been in beta since 22 July 2026 and is scheduled to go stable on 5 August. It's a smaller release than July's automation-editor overhaul, but the headline change is one every new user will notice immediately: Home Assistant no longer makes you remember port 8123. Alongside that, Matter doorbells gain proper event support, dozens of "Advanced" labels have been quietly removed from the interface, and Shelly's integration picks up enhanced security options. Here's a breakdown of what's changing, and what to check before you install it.
New installs drop :8123 for port 80
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.
Matter doorbells can finally trigger automations
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.
"Advanced" is gone, and entity IDs are now configurable
Around 40 to 43 places across the interface previously labelled a setting or toggle as "Advanced" — that distinction has been removed. 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.
Moon automations and Shelly security upgrades
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.
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.
Should you update?
For most installations, yes — but check your network setup first if you rely on port 8123 being fixed. 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.
