I’ve been “Assisting my Home” for about 4-5 months now, and what you list is almost exactly what I have done:
Raspberry Pi (because I had one)
HA OS on an SD Card (but likely moving to SSD this weekend)
ZHA running on the Sonoff 3.0 ZigBee Dongle
Home Assistant Cloud (because I also want to support the endeavor)
I had about 30 or so WiFi devices, but got involved in ZigBee due to the low cost Aqara devices.
A few Amazon Echo devices and some old routines in that ecosystem.
I’m now dabbling in Automation within HA and finding it very fun.
15 Cameras (Mostly Amcrest) running a custom Blue Iris / Plex server that I built years ago. Both now integrated into HA.
It sounds to me like you’ve chosen a good entry path.
If you use ZHA, you don’t need an MQTT broker at all for zigbee.
That said, I suggest trying both ZHA and Z2M before making a final decision.
ZHA is easier to install, but for now at least, Z2M is the easier for day to day use, IMO.
Z2M supports more devices, exposes more functionality with point and click ease to automations, and generally exposes more options and settings as easily accessible HA entities.
Ultimately, there is little or nothing you can’t get done with ZHA + ZHA Toolkit, but you’re much more likely be parsing events and mucking around with not-obvious options hidden under the “Manage Clusters” dialog.
I have been on HA for about 1 year, moving over from Smarthings (My Smartthings Divorce). I started on a Pi 4 8G with an SSD but have since moved to an x86 system (NUC equivalent).
I use ZHA for all my ZigBee devices as well as Zwave JS for my one Zwave device. I also have a bunch of WiFi devices (TPlink lights and switches, August Door Lock and 8 Smart Life sockets). I thought about going the laptop route but will be adding a UPS for my NUC.
I do all my automations in Node-Red - everything. For me it is easier to have everything in one tool, even if it is a simple automation.
I think the plan you have will serve you well. Don’t be afraid to try different integrations and add-ons as you go. HA is very powerful and can be intimidating but it really is worth the investment in time and energy.
The only comment I will make is that yes, you will get a screen with the laptop. However with HA OS you won’t get the HA UI. HAOS does not have a graphical system, only commandline.
It is good to have a screen for using the HA CLI, but as long as you don’t think you’re getting a system that doubles as a frontend.
Also, if you already have the lappie, it is a great system. But if you are still to buy one, get at least 2 cores and 8G RAM.
HAOS on x86_64, 2 cores, 4GB RAM and 256GB SSD is supercharged. My only suggestion is even if you go the DIY route to Internet connectivity you keep the Nabu Casa subscription active as this is a small contribution each one of us should be making to keep HA viable as a project, if you can afford it, which it seems you can.
I will also provide a different perspective. If your system has 2-cores/4-threads, you can go with Proxmox, HAOS and Pi-hole.
Moving my HA to a dedicated Intel NUC i3 was the best hardware decision I made. Your laptop is very similar in the setup.
Do not use WiFi to connect to your Home Assistant. It would be the choke point for your whole system. My HA NUC is in the basement and if I need to get to the command line, I SSL into the NUC.
I have a second NUC that I use as an NAS and my Home Assistant does a nightly backup to the NAS. That has saved my bacon more than once. Or twice. …(or?).
Rather than installing HAOS directly on the laptop, you might want to consider using virtualisation instead. So either keep your current OS (assuming Windows), or install a Linux distro like Ubuntu. Then install virtualisation software like VirtualBox, and create a virtual machine in which to install HAOS. This gives you the benefit of being able to use the laptop for other things, rather than exclusively HA. It also means the laptop will still have a browser, which can be used as a UI for HA.
The main downside for your specific case is that your laptop only has 4GB RAM, so you might want to upgrade the memory at the same time as the storage, assuming it’s not soldered on.
I would use proxmox (though I’ve never used it) or a lightweight Linux os and then virtualise on top of that. The number of times I’ve recovered by going back to a snapshot… I’d imagine you can stick another 4gb in the laptop very cheaply, which will give the headroom you need.
One of my goals going with the HA OS install on a dedicated machine was to minimize the number of new technologies I was taking on at once. The more variables I introduce, the more likely I will get something incorrectly set up. Trying to troubleshoot, as a newbie, also gets more difficult.
That being said … after reading up on virtual machines, that does seem like a pretty desirable solution. Can I set up HA OS on my dedicated laptop initially, then migrate it a VM configuration later after I’m up and running successfully?
There are a handful of guides on YouTube (JuanMTech, Mark Watt, TinkerDad and others) that show how to setup a fresh install of ProxMox and HA VM. I just went thru this process last week on a HP EliteDesk and system (knock on wood) has been working well.
There are then other vids to explain how to get Samba, DuckDNS, etc. setup. Lastly, I use HA Automations for EVERYTHING and haven’t found a scenario where NodeRED would be necessary (just my experience, not bashing).
You probably haven’t seen how complex some of my automations are…. I couldn’t imagine doing them in HA native, but then it’s probably because I like the nice pictures NodeRed draws
Yes you can, to answer the question you asked. Do a backup, then build the new environment and restore the backup. HA is all about the configuration and persistent data, which is what you backup and restore. You don’t backup the running containers, so the backups are quite small.
Edit: but, bear in mind you can’t migrate in place. You will need to wipe the machine to install proxmox (or whatever), before creating a vm to run HA in.
I agree on the complexity. I have routines that control lights depending on time of day as well as other inputs such as occupancy, what other lights are on, etc. For me, the “pretty pictures” that Node-Red provides helps me maintain and add new features.
That is one of the best features of HA - the ability to use different tools via add-ons and integrations.
. I couldn’t imagine doing them in HA native, but then it’s probably because I like the nice pictures NodeRed draws 