BalutFX

Yep there was nothing that i considered a nice feature upgrade other than maybe being able to chose what surface a dimension snaps to on the fly. This is not really Home Designer 2027 but rather 2026.001. It’s not something I would have paid for to upgrade. But I guess that’s what we get when they charge a rental fee every year.

Looking at the new features, I’m kind of disappointed. What do you all think?

Because, as you said, they seem to be purposefully ignoring 2025 and earlier customers in order to gather more rental customers. And if they happen to answer you with something about compatibility issues, I would argue that is BS.

I thought I'd come back to this post to see if there was any interest or actual (successful) takers of this offer. Seems like nothing.

I still haven’t received any further information on how to get the offered materials. So, never mind Rene, I don’t care to have them anymore.

Thanks. I just forwarded the email to your Gmail account and will DM you my email address

I sent both a DM and email requesting access to this offer, but have not yet received further instructions beyond the initial acknowledgment. Update: Crickets. I'm wondering if Rene's close relationship with the developers at Chief Architect and my criticism of their Home Designer line are the reason. I hope not.

I recently reformatted and reinstalled apps on my MacBook. I always download all the manufacturer and my purchased catalogs so I can use them if I don't have an internet connection. However, I noticed a banner on the purchased catalog webpage that I hadn't noticed before, about purchased catalogs not being available indefinitely. Maybe it was there for awhile, or maybe it's new. Regardless, if you have purchased catalogs from Chief, I recommend you download them, or risk losing access to purchased items if they decide to not host them anymore. I'm not sure why they would do that, but then again, I'm not sure why they switched Home Designer to a subscription vs perpetual license either.

Yep sorry that didn't work out for you. That is one of the bummer features in all the Chief Architect products - lack of backward compatibility. I hope you didn't put too much work into the 2026 versions.

Yes, 2025 and earlier versions of Home Designer are perpetual licenses and will continue to work, but likely won’t receive any further updates. What I was referring to is the lack of backwards capability in any of the Chief Architect products. If you open any of your HD 2025 (or earlier) plans in HD 2026 and save it (or create a plan in HD 2026) you will not be able to open it anymore in HD 2025. So you will only have the ability to access or modify plans saved in HD 2026 if you continue to pay the rental cost.

I agree 100%. The lack of backward compatibility essentially locks you into paying for Home Designer 2026 if you ever want to access your files again, once the subscription runs out. I also feel like referring to the discount pricing for current Home Designer users as an "upgrade" is not the right word anymore. A purchase of Home Designer 2026 and beyond is now only a RENTAL, plain and simple. I wouldn't rent Home Designer 2026 and beyond even if the discount was significantly less. Absolutely not worth it for me.

I selected Generated Sky as you suggested, and don't really see much improvement over the previous image I got with Home Designer 2026. I'm sure there are tweaks that can be done to improve the generated image in the subscription only Home Designer 2026, but I still would not pay the high upgrade cost for the RTRT feature that was added. Especially when there are free AI tools that can be used with legacy perpetual license Home Designer versions with much better results.

With the release of Home Designer 2026 (subscription only) and the inclusion of real time Ray Trace, I wanted to see how much of an upgrade that feature was. HD 2026 does provide a slight improvement to PBR in HDP 2025, but with tools such as ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion (which have a free tier), I don’t think the RTRT in Home Designer 2026 is worth the high upgrade price. For those of us with the legacy perpetual licenses, I’d recommend checking out the AI tools available. Here are some comparison images:

Yep. I downloaded the trial to see what was new, and also noticed that the additional features PDF was disappointingly very limited. Still can't import SKP objects as anything other than interior fixtures, so you will need a tedious workaround to place doorknobs and cabinet hardware for each instance. To me, this is a dumb and unnecessary restriction of the Home Designer line. Also, the "free" catalog items exclude cabinets. Another dumb restriction in my opinion. Why not just allow Home Designer users to purchase the catalogs that they want to use? The "upgrade" to Home Designer 2026 SUBSCRIPTION ONLY is definitely not worth the money, especially since the software dies as soon as you stop paying.

I saw that. Ray Trace and all catalog items included = $$$$. Cha-Ching, Cha-Ching