With the out-of-control price and scarcity of the Raspberry Pi 4, I was looking to get a micro PC and use it as a single-purpose computer to run Home Assistant similar to this:
There are many Linux installation instructions out there, but most seem to assume you will use the PC for things in addition to just running Home Assistant. The instructions for Raspberry Pi installations basically boil down to this:
Burn image to SD card.
Boot from SD card.
Wait for the login page to appear.
What is the simplest way to have a similar installation experience using a dedicated single-purpose PC?
I’m hoping for a similar installation experience as with the Raspberry Pi where the user burns an image to storage, boots from that image, and then logs into the front-end.
Are there any differences or limitations using HAOS vs a Raspberry Pi setup? Are there certain things I should look out for when choosing micro PC hardware?
Both the RPi and x86 Home Assistant Operating System (HAOS) images are essentially identical. In both cases, you image the computer’s drive with the proper HAOS Image, and then boot the computer. As for what specific x86 hardware to choose? I really can’t help with that decision, other than many people are very successful using an Intel NUC. There are lots of threads discussing hardware options. Make sure someone else has been successful with whatever hardware you’re interested in using before purchasing it, would be my advice.
