Several entity component getters now return StringRef instead of const char* or std::string. This improves safety by eliminating null pointer crashes and provides a modern C++ API.
This is a breaking change for external components in ESPHome 2026.1.0 and later.
ESP8266 builds now exclude unused Serial objects and waveform/PWM code by default. External components using these features must explicitly enable them.
This is a breaking change for external components in ESPHome 2026.1.0 and later.
The GPIOPin::dump_summary() virtual method now writes to a caller-provided buffer instead of returning std::string. This eliminates heap allocations during configuration dumps.
This is a breaking change for external components that implement custom GPIO pins in ESPHome 2026.1.0 and later.
The OTA component now uses a listener interface instead of std::function callbacks. The alarm control panel component has removed per-state callback methods in favor of a unified state callback.
This is a breaking change for external components in ESPHome 2026.1.0 and later.
The Socket class virtual methods getpeername() and getsockname() that returned std::string have been removed. The ClientInfo struct no longer contains std::string fields.
This is a breaking change for external components in ESPHome 2026.1.0 and later.
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