Im new to all of this, I have a question if the following setup would work
I have:
DELL Wyse 5070 mini PC - 16gb, 64gb SSD
Sonoff Dongle-P for Zigbee USB Stick
EasBox 904x Router
two tablets for controlling Home Assistant
several Shelly 1 Mini gen3
several Shelly Dimmer2
2 Tuya compatible LED Strip Controllers (I can’t switch to Dimmer2 because the led strips exceed the dimmer2 watt limits)
Zigbee Aqara Temp Sensors
(soon:) Zigbee motion sensors
The question: I wanted to set up my mini PC without windows, just home assistant with proxmox. The Tuya controllers should run with local tuya (I hope I’ll get it to work)
Now I have the idea I could install windows 10 or 11 instead and let home assistant run on a virtual machine, everything so I could hook up a touch monitor to the PC and use it as a wall mounted display.
My questions:
could this be stable (win10/11 with HA in VM as a server)?
will the Zigbee Stick work with his VM-HA?
can I also use the PC as a client for this VM-HA so I can use the touch monitor as a client?
I’m in the process of getting all the items, none of it was tested or installed yet. I have to mention it will be complete offline-setup as it’s for a property without own Internet access.
Hello,
I’ve been using a Home Assistant Instance inside of Windows 10 Hyper-V for about 2 years now and I’d say it’s very stable. Having it run in Windows comes with some downsides compared to a ‘real’ Server solution (Windows 10/11 is definitely not designed for Server use) but it works for me. I think you could have your PC be a client and host HA at the same time this way, but It’s probably not the optimal solution. I mainly went with Windows because I was too lazy to familiarize myself with a better solution, not because it offers any real advantages.
I can’t say anything about your ZigBee Stick since I don’t have one myself, but as far as I’m aware, tunneling a USB port to the VM can easily be done. (That doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll work though.)
TL;DR: My Hyper-V instance in Win 10 has been very consistently stable for 2 years now, I think your Touch Monitor Client Idea could work, IDK about your ZigBee Stick, If you’re willing to invest the time and effort maybe look to a ‘real’ Server Solution instead
@NathanCu beat me to it. Dell Wyse 5070- good choice. Sonoff Dongle- good Router- If it is ISP-supplied, it is the low bidder. I am not familiar with the EasBox, but any owned router will be better than an ISP provided one. Tablets- Fine, but anything that runs a browser will work. Shelly’s are good products. Tuya- I wouldn’t. Tuya generally is a cloud device. What LED strips are you using? Athom makes controllers that already have ESPHome installed. Motion sensors- Ask ten people how they use motion or presence sensors and you will get ten different answers.
Without Windows is an excellent choice. ProxMox- WHY??? Home assistant is a server. Unless you absolutely must be able to run Mario Brothers on the same computer, there is no reason to install ProxMox or other virtualization. It adds complexity and another learning curve, for what? Just install the X-86 image of HAOS on the PC boot device and you’re done. If later you find that there is something that must be run on the Home Assistant server host computer that isn’t in an add-on, you can always install ProxMox later.
Home Assistant is a server. HAOS is the operating system. Running a server operating system in a virtual PC on a Windows PC makes little sense. Yes, your scenario would work, but at what cost of complexity and performance? Install HAOS bare-metal on the Wyze, put it in a closet or in the basement under the stairs, and you will rarely ever need to even look at it. For control, anything that can run a browser will work. It can be a cheap tablet, a repurposed Kindle, or a DIY device.
I hear you. Thanks everyone for the helpful comments. I opted for proxmox simply because several YouTube channel recommended it for the sake of installation ease. Maybe I need to search for other tutorials and install it without proxmox.
For my wall display, I had the idea to look for a nice used cheap all in one windows PC… And I found one: HP Envy recline 27" touch with Bluetooth, WLAN etc, with added 16gb of ram.
It’s an antique model but just for displaying a home assistant screen it will be sufficient/perfect.
And as for the question regarding the led strip controllers: I have several very long cob led strips (up to 25m) with 220v directly to the strip (checked it, no 12v/24v). Every reasonably priced controller I found is 12/24v or my strip exceeds their watt limits (measured one with 225w, one with 350w), so I went with the AliExpress controllers that came with it, having the power supply and controller in one.
