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| Home Assistant’s Android app has been updated |
If you're an Android user who's invested in the powerful, local-first smart home ecosystem of Home Assistant, there's good news waiting for you on the Google Play Store. The widely popular Home Assistant Companion App for Android has just rolled out a significant update to version 2026.1.6, packed with features that bring it closer to parity with its iOS counterpart and significantly polish the user experience.
Gone are the days of a utilitarian setup process. One of the headlining changes in this release is a completely refreshed onboarding experience. The new flow is designed to be more intuitive for newcomers, guiding them through the crucial steps of connecting to their Home Assistant instance with clearer instructions and a modernized interface. This update follows a similar redesign that iOS users received in late 2025, ensuring a consistent starting point for all users.
But the improvements aren't just skin deep. For those who rely on voice commands, the update brings a powerful upgrade to Assist, the built-in voice control tool. The integration of streaming text-to-speech (TTS) technology means responses from your smart home are now faster and more natural. Instead of waiting for the entire response to be processed before hearing anything, words begin to stream audibly almost instantly, making interactions feel much more conversational and responsive.
Navigating a complex smart home just got easier. Another major addition is the new entity picker, which first landed in the 2026.1 base version. This tool is essential for setting up automations, dashboards, and shortcuts. The enhanced picker now includes advanced filters for ID, name, and area, allowing you to pinpoint exactly the light, sensor, or switch you're looking for in a sea of entities. This is a huge time-saver in densely configured smart homes.
You can grab all these new features directly from the Google Play Store. The latest version of the Home Assistant Companion App for Android is available for download here.
While the Play Store listing itself may not detail every change, the open-source nature of Home Assistant means the full, technical changelog is transparently available. Developers and curious users can dive into the specifics on the official Home Assistant GitHub page.
The announcement was made via the team's social channels, including a detailed post on X (formerly Twitter) that you can find here.
This Android app update is part of a broader wave of improvements. As noted by sources like Caschy's Blog, it sets the stage for the upcoming Home Assistant core 2025.2 update, expected to roll out to self-hosted instances in the coming days. This tandem release highlights the project's commitment to enhancing both the server-side power and the client-side accessibility of what is arguably the most flexible smart home platform available.
Sources: Google Play Store, Home Assistant via GitHub, Home Assistant via X, Caschy’s Blog.
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| A new onboarding page in the Home Assistant app for Android |
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| The new entity picker in the Home Assistant app for Android |