Home Assistant OS 18.4 reached the stable channel on 27 October 2026. The bug-fix and security release restores affected RTL8761B Bluetooth adapters, carries forward the Raspberry Pi USB-storage and Realtek VLAN fixes tested in the release candidates, updates the underlying security stack and adds verifiable signatures for release-image manifests.
Quick summary
| Area | Home Assistant OS 18.4 stable |
|---|---|
| Release status | Stable release, published 27 October 2026 |
| Bluetooth | Fix for affected RTL8761B adapters; RTL8761CU firmware also added |
| Raspberry Pi | Targeted USB-storage workarounds and boot-retry correction |
| Networking | Kernel correction for a specific Realtek VLAN offload regression |
| Security | Linux 6.18.58 on supported targets, plus newer Docker, containerd, Buildroot and Go |
| Downloads | SHA-256 manifest with a Sigstore signature bundle for Cosign verification |
The important change since RC1 is stable status
Our 18.4 RC1 report covered the two narrow Raspberry Pi storage workarounds, the Realtek VLAN correction and the new signed checksum files. The final 18.4 build makes those changes available through the stable release channel and adds the security and Bluetooth work completed for RC2.
This is an operating-system update, not Home Assistant Core 2026.10.4, Supervisor or an ESPHome firmware release. It matters only to installations running Home Assistant OS, whether directly on supported hardware or inside the official virtual-machine image. Our HAOS, Container and Proxmox comparison explains that deployment distinction.
RTL8761B Bluetooth adapters work again
A Linux kernel change from 6.18.45 affected RTL8761B Bluetooth adapters identified as USB device 0bda:a728. Home Assistant OS 18.4 backports the correction for the 6.18.58 kernel used by Home Assistant Green, the Open Virtual Appliance, generic x86-64, ODROID, Khadas and generic AArch64 builds.
The release also adds firmware for RTL8761CU controllers. These are separate changes: the CU firmware addition does not mean every Realtek Bluetooth dongle had the B-series regression, and the published B-series backport is not listed for the Raspberry Pi kernel tree. Users should check the USB vendor and product ID rather than relying only on a retail brand name.
Raspberry Pi storage and VLAN fixes are now stable
On Raspberry Pi, HAOS now routes two specific ASMedia USB-storage bridges away from UAS: 174c:1156, reported in an Argon ONE M.2 case, and 174c:235c, used by the UGREEN 70499 CM300 enclosure. The workaround favours reliability through the older USB-storage path; it is not a general SSD performance improvement.
The release also restores eligible hardware VLAN-tag handling for a Realtek configuration involving reorder_hdr and offload features. Boot scripts on several targets refill the available boot attempts before selecting a slot, reducing the chance that a recoverable update path is exhausted prematurely.
Security updates and signed image manifests
Home Assistant OS 18.4 updates Docker to 29.8.2, containerd to 2.3.6, Buildroot to 2025.02.19 and Go to 1.27.3. Its refreshed certificate bundle removes trust in eMudhra root certificates that were used to sign compromised intermediate certificates.
Release downloads now include SHA256SUMS and SHA256SUMS.sigstore.json. The checksum can identify a damaged or altered image, while the Sigstore bundle lets an administrator use Cosign to verify that the checksum manifest came from Home Assistant’s release workflow. This is most useful when manually downloading an image for a Raspberry Pi, mini PC or recovery installation.
Who should install it?
The project encourages all HAOS users to upgrade. The case is strongest for systems affected by one of the named Bluetooth, VLAN or USB-storage faults, but the security dependency updates also make 18.4 the sensible stable target for other supported installations. Keep a current backup outside the boot drive first; our Home Assistant NAS backup guide covers one practical route. We have not independently tested the release on every supported platform.
