Home Assistant Can Now Control Your TV — No New Hardware Needed

Control your TV, AC, and soundbar from Home Assistant — without replacing a single device. 🎯 Home Assistant 2026.4 is here, and this might just be the release that changes everything. 🔴 What's new in Home Assistant 2026.4: ⚡ Native Infrared (IR) Control — Connect an affordable IR blaster like the Xiao Smart IR Mate and control your existing TVs and air conditioners straight from Home Assistant. No hardware replacements needed! 🤖 Smarter Automations with Area & Label Targeting — Purpose-specific triggers now let you target entire areas instead of individual entities. Select your "office" and Home Assistant handles all the sensors automatically. New trigger types: battery, door, garage door, illuminance & more! 🎨 Dashboard Background Colors — Add color and personality to your sections with adjustable background colors and opacity settings. 🔑 Matter Lock User Management — Add users and PIN codes to your Matter-compatible locks directly from Home Assistant, with full or one-time access options. 💡 Light Color Favorites & Cover Favorite Positions — Save your go-to light colors and blind positions as quick-access buttons on tile cards. Copy favorites between entities in seconds! 📦 New Integrations — Dropbox (as a backup location!), LG Infrared, OpenDisplay BLE e-paper, Casper Glow, Unify Access and more. ⚠️ Backward-Incompatible Changes — Entity naming convention changes may affect your dashboards. Also check: Litter-Robot 4, Motion Blinds, MQTT, TUYA, Z-Wave. If you enjoy monthly Home Assistant updates, tutorials, and honest smart home reviews, consider supporting the channel. It helps me test betas and save you time. 📄 Full release notes: https://rc.home-assistant.io/blog/202... 🧠 The full changelog: https://rc.home-assistant.io/changelo... 💬 Join the Home Assistant release party:    • Home Assistant 2026.4 Release Party   Blog version: https://www.smarthomejunkie.net/home-... 👉 Get the desktop clock/message ticker that I use in the video:    • This is the BEST MATRIX DISPLAY CLOCK for ...   If this video saved you time or frustration, consider sponsoring the channel. These guides take many hours to produce: ⭐⭐⭐ Join this channel to get access to perks: 📺    / smarthomejunkie   Please consider becoming my patron 🏅 at   / smarthomejunkie   Or please support me by buying me a ☕ at https://ko-fi.com/smarthomejunkie/ Or sponsor me through PayPal at https://paypal.me/smarthomejunkie ⭐⭐⭐ ⭐ If you want me to create a review of your product, please visit this page for information and rates: https://www.smarthomejunkie.net/revie... ⭐ My Devices: https://github.com/smarthomejunkie/My... Instagram:   / smarthomejunkie   X: https://www.x.com/smarth0mejunkie Mastodon: https://mastodon.world/@smarthomejunkie Facebook:   / smarthomejunkie   TikTok:   / smarthomejunkie   Discord:   / discord   00:00:00 Introduction 00:00:40 IR Integration 00:01:54 Purpose Specific Automation Triggers and Conditions 00:05:26 Section Background Color 00:06:20 New Entity Naming Convention 00:09:54 Matter Lock Functionalities 00:11:10 Light and Cover Favorites in Tile Cards 00:13:05 Gauge Card Updates 00:14:00 Auto height for cards 00:15:21 New Integrations 00:17:19 Other Noteworthy Changes 00:19:40 Bloopers Music by: 2TECH-AUDIO: https://2tech-audio.bandcamp.com/ #HomeAssistant #SmartHome #HomeAutomation #HomeAssistant20264 #Infrared