The latest beta update for Home Assistant, version 2025.11b0, is here, and it’s focused on making the Matter smart home standard more powerful and easier for everyone to use. This release adds new features that give you more detailed control over your devices and better insight into what’s happening in your home, all without needing complex setups. These improvements help your smart home run more efficiently and intelligently, turning your devices into more than just simple switches.
Better climate control
Your heating and humidity controls just got a lot smarter. This update exposes a powerful feature from the official Matter standard for thermostats: the PIHeatingDemand attribute. Instead of just knowing if your heat is “on” or “off,” Home Assistant can now see the exact percentage of heating your thermostat is requesting, from 0 to 100 percent. This is a game-changer for modern, variable-speed systems like heat pumps.
Smart Thermostat X
A versatile smart thermostat that supports major heating systems and enables easy, energy-efficient control through app or voice.
Additionally, if your thermostat measures humidity like the tado X thermostat, it will now show up as its own separate sensor automatically. Before, you needed to write code to use this data. Now, you can easily create automations – like turning on a fan when it gets too humid – directly from the user interface.
More control over your devices
This update gives you more precise control over everyday devices. For Matter-compatible water heaters, a new “boost” service lets you run a high-power heating cycle for a set amount of time, which is perfect for when you have guests. This is much simpler than creating multiple automations to do the same thing.
ULTRALOQ Bolt Fingerprint Smart Deadbolt
Unlock smarter living with a Matter-over-Thread door lock that blends secure access, long battery life, and seamless control across your favorite smart home platforms.
Your door locks also get smarter and secure. The new version introduced new features including EnablePrivacyModeButton, UserCodeTemporaryDisableTime, and WrongCodeEntryLimit. You can configure these features directly in Home Assistant to better secure your entrance, avoiding harmful attempts with wrong PINs. Here is the demo with Xthings ULTRALOQ Bolt doorlock.
A simple mute and unmute toggle has been added for all Matter-compatible speakers, making it easy to create an automation that mutes your music when you answer a phone call.
A more accessible smart home
Home Assistant 2025.11 also helps you understand and troubleshoot your system more easily. The update introduces new sensors that expose a device’s technical OperationalError attribute, acting as an alarm for your smart home.
SwitchBot Robot Vacuum K11+
A compact, 6000Pa robot vacuum and mop with 90-day auto-emptying, laser navigation, and Matter smart home integration for efficient, low-maintenance cleaning.
If a device reports a problem – like a robotic vacuum getting stuck – this sensor will report to Matter platforms, allowing you to create an automation that sends you a notification right away so you always know when something needs your attention.
Another improvement is the labeling (Matter FixedLabel and UserLabel). Home Assistant can now better handle entities of Matter devices, appending extra information in naming so you can tell, for example, which button is on the top of the device. However, the feature now only supports certain devices like TP-Link Dual Outdoor Plug US, Eve Energy dual Outlet US, and Inovelli VTM series.
System clarity is also improved for users with an IKEA DIRIGERA hub; after the hub receives its recent firmware update (version 2.866.3), Home Assistant’s Thread network page will now show the official IKEA logo for the device. This small visual touch makes it much easier to identify your Thread border routers at a glance.
DIRIGERA
A Matter-compatible smart hub that connects and automates IKEA smart devices, enabling flexible control through the IKEA Home smart app, voice assistants, and remote triggers.
These practical updates make Home Assistant’s Matter integration more powerful and user-friendly, helping you build a smarter and more reliable home.
(Source: Home Assistant, GitHub; Image Source: Home Assistant, Matter Alpha/Ward Zhou)
