ESPHome 2026.10 — what changed for you

Plain-text firmware updates now have an end date. A light may boot differently, ESP8266 builds take longer once, and a few niche configs need a one-line edit.

Updated 22 October 2026 esphometroubleshootingsecurity

ESPHome 2026.10 is mostly faster builds and smaller updates, which need nothing from you. Four things are worth knowing before you update a device, and one of them has a deadline.

Plain-text firmware updates end in 2027.3

ESPHome 2026.9 added encrypted firmware updates (see ESPHome 2026.9 — what changed for you). Until now a device without it simply carried on updating in plain text. From ESPHome 2027.3.0 that fallback is removed, so a device whose config has no OTA encryption: will stop taking updates over the network.

The fix is the same two lines as before, on any device that already has an api: encryption key:

ota:
  - platform: esphome
    encryption:

Do it while you are on 2026.10 and nothing else changes. If you leave it until after 2027.3, the update that switches encryption on has to go out in plain text one last time, and you will need a temporary helper for that one install:

ota:
  - platform: esphome
    encryption:
      allow_plaintext_upload: true

The uploader tells you when the device is encrypting; remove allow_plaintext_upload then. encryption: cannot be combined with an old OTA password:, so remove that at the same time.

A light that now boots on

If a light has initial_state: set to on and no restore_mode:, it used to be quietly forced off at boot anyway. In 2026.10 it really does boot on. If you had come to rely on it starting dark, add the behaviour you want explicitly.

restore_mode: itself still works. It is deprecated in favour of a new restore_state: option, and validation warns when the old key would throw away an initial_state you set. If you see that warning, check the light's boot state is what you expect.

ESP8266: the first build after updating is slow

ESP8266 devices now build with ESPHome's own toolchain instead of PlatformIO. The first build after updating downloads it and rebuilds the device from scratch, so expect a few minutes; builds after that are quick again.

Three setups still need the old toolchain: a custom framework source:, a framework version other than 3.1.2, or a board ESPHome does not list. For those, add:

esp8266:
  board: d1_mini   # your board
  toolchain: platformio

That option is deprecated and goes away in 2027.4.0, so treat it as a stopgap.

Configs that stop validating

These only affect a few component types. Each one fails at validation, so you see the error before anything is flashed.

• IR/RF receivers on ESP8266, RP2040, LibreTiny, ESP32-C2 and ESP32-C61. buffer_size: now counts bytes, not entries. If you set it yourself, multiply the number by 4 to keep the same capacity. If you never set it, do nothing.
• Speaker media player. codec_support_enabled has been removed. Use the pipeline's format: setting instead; format: NONE replaces the old all. Volume and mute are also separate now, so on_mute and on_unmute no longer fire when the volume changes.
• Sendspin. It now needs the ESP-IDF framework, and Music Assistant 2.10.7 (or 2.11.0b4) or newer, because every connection is encrypted. A Sendspin switch needs type: enabled.

Smaller updates, nothing to do

Firmware updates to ESP32, RP2040 and LibreTiny devices are now compressed, about a third smaller on the network. It switches on by itself once a device is running 2026.10. Devices on older firmware update exactly as before.