What has changed this year in "What the Heck?!" month?
"What the Heck?!" (WTH) is a month-long feedback event announced by Franck Nijhof on 29 October 2026. For the whole of November, anyone can post in the "Month of What the Heck?!" category on the Home Assistant community forum, describing something that makes them go "what the heck?!". Typical examples from the announcement are a setting you can never find, a moment your home did something nobody could explain, or a feature you cannot believe is missing.
The project says it runs the event once every two years on purpose, because a lot changes in Home Assistant and the wider smart home world in that time. This edition follows a year in which the Open Home Foundation has been focusing on making Home Assistant more approachable, and the 2026.10 release is the one Nijhof cites as an example: since then, every user, not only administrators, can change their own profile picture from their profile page.
Who is invited this time?
Previous editions mostly drew feedback from a narrow group: people who write YAML for fun and know what an entity ID is. This year the call is explicitly wider. The announcement names three groups it wants to hear from:
- New users still in the "huh?" stage of setup, whose first impressions are easy to forget once you are used to the system.
- Non-technical users who want things to simply work and do not want to tinker.
- People living in a home someone else set up: partners, parents, flatmates and children who live with Home Assistant every day without ever opening a settings page.
If you run Home Assistant for a household, the project asks you to put a few questions to the people you live with: what annoys them most, whether they can find what they need in the app or dashboard, whether they understand why the house did something unexpected, and what they would change. Nijhof warns you might not like all the answers. Posting on someone else's behalf is explicitly allowed, as long as you say so and use their words.
How do you take part?
You need a free account on the Home Assistant community forum, which the announcement says takes about a minute. Then post in the Month of "What the Heck?!" category, following the posting guidelines:
| Guideline | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Search first, then vote | If someone already posted your frustration, vote for it and add your own story in a reply. Votes show how common a problem is. |
| One WTH per topic | Separate topics are easier to discuss, vote on and track. There is no limit on how many you create. |
| Describe the moment, not the solution | Say what happened, what you expected and why it bugged you. No technical terms needed. |
| Be kind | Many of the people working on Home Assistant are volunteers. |
The announcement's own example of a good post is plain: "I wanted to turn off the kitchen lights and couldn't figure out where they were in the app." The forum is in English, but you may use a translation tool as long as you say so and include your original text in a hidden details block.
Why does this matter for UK Home Assistant users?
It is a rare, direct route to influence the roadmap, and the roadmap is already moving towards the issues households complain about. Recent releases have pushed in that direction: Home Assistant 2026.10 added the per-user profile picture change, and the 2026.11 entity naming change followed a feedback process of its own. Nijhof says all WTHs are read, and that in past editions contributors fixed some while the month was still running.
For UK households the most useful WTHs are usually the ones only a non-admin notices: a dashboard that hides the one switch a partner needs, an automation that fires with no visible explanation, or a heating schedule nobody dares to touch. If you want to prepare before posting, it is worth looking at your own setup through their eyes first. Our Home Assistant dashboard guide covers building views that other people in the house can actually use, and our 2026.11 release rundown lists what has just changed.
What happens after November?
The announcement does not promise specific changes or a delivery date. What it does say is that every WTH is read, that contributors are free to pick up fixable ones straight away, and that the wider feedback will shape how Home Assistant becomes approachable to everyone in a home rather than only the person holding the admin account. Treat the outcome as unknown until the project publishes its follow-up.
