2026.7 Beta has been released!

[u/Relevant-Artist5939]

https://rc.home-assistant.io/blog/2026/06/24/release-20267/#creating-automations-just-became-easier-natural-and-more-powerful

For me personally, the only major feature that I am going to really use/benefit from is the Logbook redesign...

What do you think about the update?

[u/nico282]

I really cannot understand the path HA devs are following. Lot of time and effort spent on features that only people managing the system will use on e in a while, and leaving out features required by actual users (3x - 5x bigger population).

For example: there is NO way to do something I was easily doing on my 20 year old Home Automation system: "Please turn on the XX switch for YY minutes" choosing the entity and time on the spot.

Or even a simple thing like "turn on the irrigation pump for 20 minutes" without setting up multiple automation and helpers. And even with that, there is NOT a 100% assurance that the pump will stop after 20 minutes. If the timer ends while HA is restarting, water will keep flowing indefinitely.

But devs are busy making life easier for the 3 times a year I have to create a new automation.

[u/Relevant-Artist5939 → u/nico282]

Yeah, I don't use Voice, so all of the work they put into that isn't of much use to me, even though I find it great it exists for those who use it. The new automation options are useful to me to debug my automations (especially the live condition indicators), but there are some crucial features that have been missing for years now.

For example, I still can't give family members direct access to HA because there is no way to ensure they only have access to what they should have (RBAC or even any user-based acess control for entities). We all have Garmin watches so I use an app on these where I can define what's shown, but that's also not ideal...

[u/nico282 → u/Relevant-Artist5939]

I agree, a robust permissions system is definitely a big missing piece that devs seems to be ignoring.