Reporting the local stack, from radio to automations.
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Friday, 18 September 2026Live edition
The Briefing
18 September 2026
Home Assistant Core 2026.9.3 landed this morning — a patch release with Matter cover fixes for Shelly tilt-null, EnergyZero price regression repair, and backup rewrite encryption among the standouts. On the device rail, Hue Play gradient strip pro flipped to In stock on the UK storefront while the US page still says Coming soon. Aqara FP400 remains day-after worldwide ship.
What happened: Core tag 2026.9.3 published 2026-09-18T12:11:05Z (author frenck), seven days after 2026.9.2. It is a patch release, not a feature drop. Standouts for local-stack readers from the GitHub body:
Fix Matter cover entity not created when tilt attribute is null for Shelly devices (#182042)
Fix EnergyZero market price regression (#181230)
Keep the known Bond host when zeroconf still announces it (#181975)
Encrypt and decrypt supervisor.tar in backup rewrites (#182220)
Require the IRK in the Private BLE Device config flow (#181969)
Make Nest climate turn_on idempotent (#182086)
Fix Alexa doorbell state report when return status is NO_CONTENT (#182209)
Bump reolink_aio to 0.21.17 (#182472)
Also in the notes: Spotify reauth crash when config entry data lacks id, Airthings BLE duplicate devices on incomplete read, IMAP custom data event template not reset when cleared, plus dependency bumps (holidays, pylutron, waterfurnace, aioamazondevices, hassil).
Why it matters: Shelly Matter blinds with a null tilt attribute were silently missing cover entities — this closes that hole. EnergyZero users get the market-price path fixed. Backup rewrite now encrypts/decrypts supervisor.tar. Upgrade from 2026.9.2 is the usual Supervisor / Core path.
What happened: No new calendar from Aqara overnight. The Spatial Multi-Sensor FP400 (PS-S05E / PS-S05D) remains on sale worldwide after yesterday’s availability push: 60 GHz mmWave, dual Zigbee + Matter-over-Thread. Matter caveat unchanged — third-party Thread joins expose overall presence + illuminance; do not assume full zone export.
Why it matters: Hardware is live; validate Matter zone exposure on your controller before buying for zone automations.
Google Home MCP — early access still rolling (Premium Advanced U.S.)
What happened: No newer access-window change since the 16 Sep open. MCP-capable agents can still drive Nest / Works-with-Google-Home gear via the Home MCP server after Cloud project + OAuth setup. Docs still list tools such as list_homes, list_home_states, and run_home_actions. Scope remains Google Home Premium Advanced in the U.S.
Why it matters: Cloud-side agent control sets expectations; local-first stacks still need their own agent boundaries.
What happened: Latest stable tag remains 2026.9.0 (published 2026-09-16). No 2026.9.1 on the releases list. Noise encrypted OTA, parallelized PlatformIO installs, modbus_controller renames, and the custom eFuse MAC apply across Ethernet / BLE / 802.15.4 still define the upgrade checklist.
Why it matters: Hold the 16 Sep upgrade notes; watch custom-MAC Thread/Zigbee nodes for re-commission.
Hue Play strip pro — UK In stock; US still Coming soon
Philips Hue Play gradient strip light pro — source Signify press kit
What happened: Signify calendared the Play gradient strip light / strip light pro portfolio from 15 September. As of this morning’s live check: the UK pro 65" page shows In stock (£139.99); the US pro 100" page still shows Coming soon ($229.99). Rolling ship continues market-by-market.
What happened: No overnight change to the European listing for DUBBELKISEL (article 50609444): Matter over Thread, Thread Border Router required. US/UK timing still unannounced.
Tapo Matter cameras — end-of-September window still open
What happened: No new TP-Link calendar confirmation overnight. HW revisions of C560WS, C260, and C660 Kit for Matter camera code still framed as end of September — a window, not a lock.
Shelly ThreadLink Gen4 still ~December — plus today’s Matter cover fix
What happened: No newer ThreadLink calendar. Gen4 ThreadLink remains the ~December watch from prior IFA framing. Separately, today’s Core 2026.9.3 Matter cover fix (#182042) matters for Shelly devices whose tilt attribute arrives as null — cross-link to the lead.
