I would like to set up Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi I am unsure which one would be best for me.
I am new to Home Assistant, and really just want to set up ESPHome. I plan on having a lot of ESP32’s doing all sorts of things. I will likely want to automate lights and maybe monitor electricity use as well. Nothing else, I think.
I’m looking for something small and fast.
Which setup do you think would fit the bill? Do you think the 5 is overkill? Do I need an enclosure and fan, or cooling?
If you have not already had a look, see this for getting started.
If you like the idea of building a system your self, then pick a Raspberry PI that fits your budget. Spend the most you can afford & it will last you the longest. For a plug & play solution, the HA Green is a good way to go.
A PI5 is not overkill but certainly gives you headroom to grow your system as you inevitably fall down the HA rabbit hole Enclosures & fans are all good accessories to consider but they can be added later if you need.
Let me just add one thing: If for whatever reason you find yourself with a lower-power device, you can always do the ESPHome compiling elsewhere. I run ESPHome command-line on my laptop. You can still have the add-on in HA, but not bog down the HA machine doing the compiles. I actually find separating the development/maintenance functions from the HA “production” system easier.
Maybe I’m not seeing the correct information online, but it looks to me like NUC is about twice the cost of a Pi5, hardware all in, not including NUC software cost.
Also, Pi5 HA installation seems per straightforward, although I haver not done it. NUC installation seems very complex.
You just touched on a sensitive point for me.
A new Intel NUC would cost 2 or 3X the cost of a Raspberry Pi5.
You can buy a used Intel NUC on eBay for less than the cost of a Pi, case and power supply.
Almost any NUC model will outperform any Raspberry Pi.
You will find many power-users who brag that they run Home Assistant in ProxMox, or Docker or some Virtualization. NONE OF THIS IS NECESSARY. These are examples of a techno-nerds pissing contest.
Home Assistant on bare-metal is the easiest and most reliable way to get started using Home Assistant on any x-86 computer. All that you need to do is flash the x-86 image of Home Assistant to the boot device, and you’re done.
My Intel NUC uses an NVME M.2 SSD as the boot device. I just inserted the M.2 SSD into a USB adapter, and flashed the image using Balena Etcher. Reinstall the SSD and turn on the NUC. Done.
If you decide in the future that you must be able to run Mario Brothers on the same PC, you can migrate to ProxMox, Docker or a VM. I guarantee that getting any of those “solutions” installed will be the most difficult part of the process.
You could flash an SSD using the Raspberry Pi Imager tool and get started that way. I did, but my system quickly outgrew the limitations of the Pi.
You could also buy a Home Assistant Green. I’ve never seen one, let alone used one, but it comes with Home Assistant installed.
What I liked about the a Pi was flashing the SD and booting. Sounds easy. I didn’t realize you could do that with something else too. Can you do that with a laptop also, or just the NUCs?
Do you think an old Intel macbook would work? I have a few of those.
If not, what minimum laptop would you need? My brother may have some.
But that whole post is very accurate. The line between what you need to run HA, and what us nerds want is often blurred in these threads.
I try to suppress my nerd tendencies and think logically. What problem am I really trying to solve? Unlike many here, HA is a production system for me. I need to monitor my heating system, sump pumps and other utilities. A failure during a storm could cost me my home.
I really don’t need automatic mood lighting, a full-featured sound system, toothbrush sensors or bed occupancy sensors. I’m perfectly capable of pushing the button on my coffee maker all by myself. My security cameras reside on their own dedicated system, which is the way I like it.
So, I’ve tried to keep my HA system lean. I keep a lid on the number of add-ons and integrations I support. Admittedly, I have some automations and features which I’ve added just for the fun of it, but my primary objective is to stay at least somewhat practical.
Yes, you can use the same install method as @stevemann on a laptop (Boot Ubuntu from a USB flash drive and install the Home Assistant Operating System from there) . Quick and easy, see here:
And totally agree on using a dedicated bare metal machine. Especially if you want that WAF.
Was having nothing but trouble with a VirtualBox install (I know not the best VM. Was testing HA as I was coming from another platform). But since I Installed on bare metal, not a single issue and I never reboot, except for HAOS upgrades which is automatic.
Yes it does work on a VM, lots of people seem to love Proxmox, but do you want an extra layer of management and troubleshooting? I don’t.
As for specs, it depends on your usage (lots of threads on this).
I use a HP EliteBook 745 G5 Ryzen 7 2700U - 8 GB RAM - 256 GB SSD. Which is way overkill for most users.
Paid 150$. purchased two so I have a hot spare.
Famous last words - before many nights and weekends are spent on the ‘else’ part
BTW:
I use a Pi5 8GB as my main production system - which includes saving e.g. solar panel production data every 5min for additional analysis outside of HA, so it needs to be running all day long - and run Frigate on a 2nd (remote) HA instance on an old laptop with the screen removed (because it was broken) for my cameras, mainly because it gives me a) support for the USB Coral TPU and b) the option to upgrade my ESP devices without bogging down the production system.
However, many laptops have the boot device soldered into the motherboard, so you have to find other ways to flash it.
You can run Home Assistant on anything with an x-86 processor and UEFI BIOS. Al PCs made in the past ten years likely have UEFI BIOS. There are some here who use the Macbook- search the forum.
Enclosures & fans are all good accessories to consider but they can be added later if you need.