Do you have some links of the caddy / ssd you got?
keep your vera and use it as a z-wave controller only. Will save you $50 on the z-stick and many prefer to have the z-wave controller separated from the machine running home assistant. Certain benefits including not having to wait 2.5 minutes for the z-wave network to load on every reboot. those minutes add up when youâre doing multiple reboots during a debugging/automation creating session. Having them separate also adds one more level of fall back when HA goes down due to your newest experiment - you can still set the temp on your thermostat and control the lights etc.
If youâre using hassio, or any docker install, you donât get those waits as you can reboot HA independently of the device and the add-ons keep running.
Best advice to save money is to only automate things that are actually worth automating. People often go mad and try to do everything which will add up stupidly fast, as an example, if youâre going into a room that you only want the lights on when youâre in there and walking past the switch as you come and go, you really donât need motion sensors and smart bulbs.
Just take it slow and do things youâll get an immediate long lasting benefit from, others can wait until you really know what you want and then when you find a bargain.
With regards to hardware to run HA on, if you have an old PC laying around or just one that is on all the time, you can put HA on that and have a play for no cost whatsoever, run it as a VM, far easier than you think, and it wonât even disturb what else you have on it. Then, as above, when youâre sure what you want spend some money if you really have to. Given it runs headless, even a laptop with a broken screen would get you going.
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Iâb be interested in some info, too.
âSSD Caddyâ = 2.5-inch SATA to USB External Hard Drive Enclosure
Such as:
Based on many threads about this subject over on the openHAB forum, ensure the USB cable isnât too long (most enclosures include a short cable). The rare glitches some have experienced are:
-
Some drives many take too long to initialize on bootup so the RPi thinks the drive is âNot readyâ and fails to boot.
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If the power supply capacity is already marginal and the drive draws too much current on bootup, the voltage dips and the RPi behaves badly (boot failure). The drive may need to be powered externally (they sell special SATA cables for this).
Anyway, it really should just work but, in case it doesnât, you now know of at least two possible causes of failure.
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If youâre only wanting to give it a try, surely you want zero cost. Why not install it on your laptop/desktop? If youâre on Windows, you just need to install VirtualBox (free) to get an Ubuntu server and then install HA/hassio. I originally did this using the YouTube guide here.
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This.
I have Home Assistant running on a free netbook I received. A nine year-old HP Mini 311. Intel Atom N270 with a scant 1 GB of RAM and a 160 GB of spinning rust.
It had no OS (even if it had one it wouldâve been Win XP). I installed Lubuntu 18.04 32-bit (the N270 is not 64-bit) and it runs acceptably well for zero dollars. Memory usage is around 565 MB and most of the time the CPU is idling (< 3% usage).
Eventually Iâll move Home Assistant to something more modern (and quieter and cooler than the N270 which consumes ~20W and runs pretty darn hot) but for now itâs an adequate test-bed for learning Home Assistant.
That looks like a good start.
I was pretty happy with Node-Red for my IOT nodes around the house, but I wanted to add Z-Wave switches. I did not want to spend the bucks on a commercial hub, so my initial plan was to just use Home Assistant and the Z-Stick to be my Z-Wave hub.
6-months laterâŚ
I now have almost every light in the house plus a few other nodes and various hardware. And I have been porting my Node-Red flows to Home Assistant when I can. (Sometimes Node-red is just easier for some tasks).
I also wrote my own code for my ESP8266 nodes, but someone here encouraged me to try Tasmota. Thanks. I am now flashing Tasmota into my ESP8266 nodes.
The next big challenge will be to get a grasp of Automatons.
Bottom line- six months of working with Home Assistant has made ne a believer.
It skip the Ubuntu and just run the hassio vmdk in virtual box.
Agreed, simplest install ever of all the variations Iâve tried and doesnât need device dependent support unlike the bad old days before it was released.
Hi,
Iâm running hassio on a pi3 with an SD card 32Go.
iâve currently 82% used, so in my opinion, 32 Go is too low, ⌠it will work, but hassio have frequent update, frequent new version, so, for security, you need to make backups, and itâs also depending of how many component you will install.
i have a 128Go in my drawer, and i seriously consider to switch before itâs too late.
ZWave usb stick is only necessary if you have zwave component without any other hub to manage it.
A lot of connected component (light, switches, covers, etc) work with their own hub who is connected on your lan, so in this case, zwave usb stick is not necessary.
Possibly just a huge db file due to having a long history?
Iâve got this one,
They take M.2 SSDs. The price on that website is expensive, I paid about $15 for it and $32 for the SSD.
Does anybody know if one of these would work?
Since you are just âkicking the tiresâ, if you have a halfway decent computer with enough RAM take my advice and donât spend any money on hardware, except possibly a z-wave stick. And thatâs only if you have any zwave devices.
Instead, install VirtualBox and create an Ubuntu 18.04 Virtual Machine.
- Then before you install a single program take a snapshot.
- At this point, use your routerâs âReserved DHCP featureâ so that your VM will always get the same IP address. You will need to modify your VMâs network to bridge to your host NIC.
- Then update your system by running (or better yet, create a script) and take another snapshot.
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade -y && apt-get dist-upgrade -y && apt autoremove -y
- Then install Home Assistant (or even better hass.io). Donât configure a single thing. In fact, donât even create a user account. Take another snapshot.
Are you noticing a pattern yet? Take plenty of snapshots, and take them often. At a minimum you should always have a âvirginâ install of Home Assistant snapshot. That way if you mess anything up you can restore it and copy your working config files and continue where you left off. You should also store your config files in a repository and push them to a cloud provider like github. Like snapshots, be liberal and make lots of commits (with good descriptions) and push them.
Besides not spending any money, this is a much faster way to experiment. You wonât be wasting time flashing SD cards, installing prerequisites, etc every time you decide to âstart overâ. Just restore a snapshot and youâre ready to go. And when you do want to use an RPI for your âproductionâ instance, it will be as simple as pulling your config files from your repository.
Why install ubuntu in a virtual machine and then hass/hassio? You can install hassio direct in vbox and avoid the ubuntu middle man.
If you worry about cost, consider alternatives to Z-Wave.
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Agreed, pick other 64bit Linux and point it at the vdmk, job done.
Pretty good chance iâd say, but I donât think youâll find a terribly comprehensive list of âsupportedâ drives.
You have a Rpi3? Looks like support on Rpi2 is only on the later revisions of the 2+ which has the same chipset as the Rpi3, i probably wouldnât take the risk on that on.
Rpi1/2 can be booted from SD and then run off of a USB by the looks of it.