How to get started with Home Assistant in 2027

Are you looking to turn your home into a smart home? With the help of Home Assistant, you can easily automate tasks and make your home more efficient. In this blog post, I’ll share my experience of how to get started with Home Assistant in 2027.

Home Assistant is a popular choice for home automation because of its versatility and flexibility. Here are a few reasons why I think Home Assistant stands out from other alternatives:

• Open-source: Home Assistant is open-source software, which means that anyone can contribute to its development and improvement. This results in a constantly evolving platform that benefits from the collective knowledge and experience of the community.

• Customizable: Home Assistant is highly customizable, which allows you to tailor it to your specific needs and preferences. You can create custom automations, integrate with a wide range of devices, and install community integrations and apps (what Home Assistant used to call add-ons).

• Local control: Unlike many other home automation platforms, Home Assistant allows for local control of your devices. This means that you can control your devices even if you don’t have an internet connection or if the cloud-based servers are down. If privacy is a big deal to you (it is for me), I eventually replaced my Alexa setup entirely with Home Assistant voice control.

As for getting into the smart home community, I’ve had a blast! There is a huge and passionate community of smart home enthusiasts out there, and it’s been great to connect with like-minded individuals who share my love of technology and automation. I’ve learned a lot from other members of the community, and I’ve been able to contribute some of my own ideas back. Overall, I’ve found the smart home community to be welcoming, helpful, and fun to be a part of.

What’s New in Home Assistant for 2027#

Most of what changed in 2026 makes the first week easier. These are the changes I’d want to know about if I were starting today, as of Home Assistant 2026.11 (November 2026):

• The Marketplace replaced HACS. Community integrations, cards, and themes now install from Settings > Marketplace, and you don’t need a GitHub account. The HACS installer stops at 2026.11, and existing HACS installs move over on their own (2026.11 release notes).

• Add-ons are now called Apps. Nothing else about them changed. Older guides, including older posts on this site, still say add-ons (2026.6 release notes).

• Triggers that read like sentences are the default. In 2026.7 the purpose-specific triggers and conditions left Labs. You start from something like “Battery low” or “Temperature crossed threshold” and point it at a whole area instead of one sensor, and the trigger deals with sensors that drop offline. Some trigger names changed along the way, so YAML copied from an old forum post may not match (2026.7 release notes).

• “Someone arrived home” works differently. Home Assistant removed the Person “entered home” and “left home” triggers in 2026.5, and zone triggers came back as a Labs feature in 2026.6. If a tutorial tells you to use the old ones, that’s why you can’t find them (2026.5, 2026.6).

• Infrared and RF come built in. Since 2026.4, a cheap ESPHome IR blaster can run old TVs, air conditioners, and soundbars, and 2026.5 added support for a roughly $10 RF module for 315/433/868/915 MHz gear. Your TV doesn’t have to be smart for Home Assistant to run it (2026.4, 2026.5).

• Matter pairing asks the right questions. Since 2026.6 you name a Matter device and put it in an area while you pair it. 2026.9 added a Matter network map and a Connectivity page in Settings that puts Zigbee, Z-Wave, Matter, Thread, and Bluetooth in one place (2026.9 release notes).

• Home Assistant Cloud is becoming Home Assistant Link. It’s the same paid service for remote access and cloud voice, with a new name planned for the December 2026 release (2026.10 release notes).

A few things from earlier in 2026 are still worth knowing. Robot vacuums can clean by area, and you can ask Assist to clean the kitchen. The Android Companion app has an experimental wake word (“Okay Nabu”, “Hey Jarvis”, or “Hey Mycroft”). And “Continue on error” is in the visual editor, so you don’t have to hand-edit YAML to keep one failed step from stopping a whole automation (2026.3, 2026.4).

What to Install It On#

Install Home Assistant OS, either on dedicated hardware or in a virtual machine, or run the Container version if you already live in Docker. As of 2026.11, Home Assistant has deprecated the Core install (Home Assistant in a Python virtual environment) for production use, and the Supervised install along with it. Skip any guide that starts there.

Hardware prices went up in 2026 because memory got expensive. As of November 2026:

• Home Assistant Green, $199. The plug-in-and-go box. Nabu Casa raised the price twice this year and blamed RAM costs, which nearly doubled what it costs to build.
• Connect ZBT-2, $49. The USB radio for Zigbee or Thread. It does one or the other, not both at once.
• Voice Preview Edition, $69. The local voice speaker. It ships without a USB-C charger or cable.

The Home Assistant Yellow went out of production in October 2025, so skip it unless you find one used. If you already have a server, a VM costs you nothing. Mine runs as a VM on my Proxmox cluster, and I wrote up how I’d build a homelab server if you want to go that way.

What is Home Assistant?#

Home Assistant is an open-source home automation platform that allows you to control and automate various devices in your home. It supports a wide range of devices and integrates with many popular smart home brands, such as Philips Hue, Nest, and Sonos.

How I got started#

When I first started exploring the world of home automation, I decided to jump in with Amazon Alexa. It was a great starting point because it was easy to set up and use, and there were a ton of compatible devices available. I was able to control my lights, thermostat, and even my TV with just my voice, which was cool.

However, I quickly ran into limitations on how deeply I could customize my home automations. I found that I was limited to the pre-built routines and commands provided by Amazon, which didn’t always fit my needs. When approaching my house, I wanted more control and flexibility over my home automation system, which is why I started looking into other options.

I tried out Homekit and Google Home, both of which worked great for controlling my devices, but I still felt like I was missing something. That’s when I discovered Home Assistant. It was a bit more challenging to set up than the other options, but it offered so much more in terms of customization and control.

With Home Assistant, I was able to create custom automations that fit my specific needs and preferences. I could integrate with a wide range of devices, and I could even develop my own add-ons and plugins. The flexibility and versatility of Home Assistant allowed me to push my home automation much further.

So if you’re just getting started with home automation, I’d recommend starting with a platform like Amazon Alexa, Homekit, or Google Home. They are all great options that are approachable and easy to use. But if you’re ready to go further with your home automation, I highly recommend checking out Home Assistant. It may take a bit more effort to set up, but the payoff in terms of customization and control is well worth it.

Getting Started with Simple Automations#

When I first started with Home Assistant, I focused on automating simple tasks like turning on/off lights and adjusting the thermostat. Here are a few specific automation ideas that I found useful:

• Turn on the lights when you enter a room: You can set up a motion sensor to trigger the lights when you enter a room. This is a great way to save energy, and it’s especially useful if you have kids who forget to turn off the lights.

• Adjust the thermostat based on the time of day: You can set up your thermostat to automatically adjust the temperature based on the time of day. For example, you can have it set to a cooler temperature during the day when you’re not home and a warmer temperature in the evening when you’re relaxing at home.

• Turn off all lights when you leave the house: You can set up an automation to turn off all lights when you leave the house. This ensures that you’re not wasting energy and also helps to keep your home secure.

Progressing to More Advanced Integrations#

Once I got comfortable with the basics, I started to explore more advanced integrations. Here are a few ideas to help you get started:

• Control your TV with your voice: Home Assistant can talk to a lot of TVs directly, and an ESPHome IR blaster covers the old ones that only understand a remote. Add Assist, Home Assistant’s own voice assistant, and you can turn the TV on, change inputs, and set the volume without hunting for the remote.

• Create a smart security system: You can use Home Assistant to create a smart security system that includes motion sensors, door sensors, and cameras. You can set up automations to receive notifications when someone enters your home or if there’s any unusual activity.

• Monitor your energy usage: You can use Home Assistant to monitor your energy usage and identify areas where you can save energy. You can set up automations to turn off devices when they’re not in use or to adjust the temperature based on the weather outside.

More Home Automation Ideas:#

• Automatically turn off lights when leaving the room

• Control lights with voice commands

• Set up a morning routine to turn on lights, adjust the thermostat, and play music

• Get notified when a door or window is left open

• Use motion sensors to trigger lights or other devices

• Create a bedtime routine to turn off lights, lock doors, and arm the security system

• Control your smart TV with voice commands

• Monitor your energy usage and adjust devices accordingly

• Get notified when someone arrives home

• Use a smart plug to turn on/off appliances remotely

• Build a pixel art notification display that flashes when someone rings the doorbell

• Set up a vacation mode to mimic your usual routine and deter burglars

• Automatically adjust the thermostat based on the weather forecast

• Turn off all devices when leaving the house

• Create a smart irrigation system for your garden

• Monitor your home’s air quality and adjust the ventilation system accordingly

These are generic ideas to get you going. For the ones I actually still run after a decade, with the details that make them work, I wrote up the best Home Assistant automations I’ve built in 10 years.