Hi, although I am not new to home automation (I have run a Smartthings Hub, and now use Hubitat), I have not ventured into the world of Home Assistant . . . yet. But recently I have had my interest peaked again. I have so many questions and I need a place to ask, even basic questions, to be sure I have the right ideas about things before I jump in.
Before anything else, I really want to know more about the hardware to actually run HA in the first place. I looked through the Docs section but it starts with Installation but I want to know a little more about what to purchase before I can get to the installation steps.
I think I want to run it on a Raspberry Pi. It’s well known, stable(?, see question 1 belew), reasonably priced, low power draw system. I don’t have any old hardware I think would be a good fit. And I think other choices are either buy someone else old hardware, or systems similar to Raspberry Pi’s. But I’m looking for mainstream, based on the thought it will make creating and running the system easier.
And, now for some questions. And, I think overall these will give the gist of where my heads at right now, so if you have an overview of system choices and how it affects the below, I would love to hear it.
Is Raspberry Pi a good stable, dependable, platform to run HA on? I would be planning on purchasing new. Right now I think either HA Yellow, or just a Pi 4 would be the main choices, but if I’m missing something let me know (and, I only just heard of HA Green yesterday).
I think that the Pi 4 only comes with a SD card slot for storage, so I would have to either use that or purchase external hardware. But I have heard that running a system off a SD card is not long term stable, and running HS OS on USB external storage can be problematic. Would I have to get HA Yellow (or Green) to avoid this?
I used to build my own PC’s (last one was about 8 years ago, so it’s been awhile). I have had trouble before underestimating the amount of system memory my computer needed which really caused some performance issues and having to upgrade later. It looks like some HA hardware platforms typically come with 2GB’s ram. If any HA system I put together is dedicated to HA only, can I be confident 2GB will sufficient?
And, if I purchase something with onboard storage, again for a system dedicated to HA, is 16GB going to have plenty of room for future expansion? How much room to typical installations now take? Is there a big difference if an installation has ‘all the options’ (not even sure what ‘all the options’ would be, but just being cautious )
Oh, I just want to mention that in addition to the hardware being dedicated to HA I would not be running a monitor on that system (assuming that’s an option). There is no monitors for Smartthings or Hubitat and I don’t have a problem with that (except that short delay every time you are loading a new page, boy that can get annoying ).
Just starting out a Pi, a NUC or one of the new HA greens are all very capable. With HA on board they are all much more capable than your ST or Hubitat hubs.
Spend time understanding the install types but as a beginner I strongly recommend HAOS. If yiu want to go more advanced later for a specific reason then you can later.
If you pick any of these systems go SSD (yes someone will invariably respond with - Mines been fine for years -) the fact of the matter is SD cards were not designed to run database loads and will (not if, when) eventually wear out and need to be replaced. If you are fine with that just be ready to get a new card and restore a backup when the time comes.
Go as much ram as possible. It’s a big state engine. Mines a Pi4b8g. Admittedly I hit it pretty hard with a fairly large multiprotocol install, but with ram price where it is. This isn’t the category to skimp in.
Room for expansion. My BACKUP is currently 20GB. I maintain three (last two full Backups and a milestone known good) so with those (60g, + approximately 30G live on disk = ~90G, we’ll call it 100 for ease.) and I like to run storage at no more than. 70% full so I can run in a 200GB - I use a half TB m.2 SSD. Plan accordingly. The smaller your disk is the more aggressive you need to be about managing your recorder db.
Finally. It’s designed to run headless. You only connect a monitor building and troubleshooting the HA box itself. Most management is either through web UI or SSH.
I don’t think OP even understands context for that question yet coming from Hubitat / ST land. We have to introduce the fact ‘it’s not just a hub’ first.
I think @NathanCu is right, what other programs are there?. My plan is to dedicate the hardware to HA.
One reason I’m looking to switch from Hubitat is I always wanted to add IR control to integrate my TV/Receiver/Fans, and possibly bluetooth also (does it ‘do’ bluetooth remove controls, or just stuff like lights & plugs?). And I have Zigbee, Zwave and Wifi smart stuff already.
Jon
Edit: Although I do think running HA OS is the way to go since I think that does all kinds of handholding for you, and that’s fine with me. That’s more than just the server, correct?
You can use your Hubitat hub to drive ZWave and Zigbee locally (i believe there’s an integration) you wouldn’t want to use your ST hub because that connection is cloud and would induce delays. Although many (including me) just prefer a ZWave and Zigbee stick to drive those systems. But the good news for you right now is you can start with just the box running HAOS and grow as you add capability
Additional capability can be given to HA by adding software - remember it’s basically just Linux underneath and if you can dream it up someone can write it. Many of the most popular and most useful of these are containerized and then provided to HAOS as addons. The more of these you add the more beef you need and thus. Steve’s questions
If you want hardware dedicated to Home Assistant, then just run HAOS. While many- maybe the majority of users run on a Raspberry Pi3 or Pi4, I personally have a distrust of the Micro SD card as the boot device. I bought a used Intel NUC i3 and flashed the X-86 binary to the 2Tb M.2 boot device. Quite happy with this. I have a z-wave and Zigbee sticks for those devices and a Sonoff RF bridge for the 433 MHz devices. I also added Bluetooth but only have one Bluetooth temperature device.
I don’t want to disturb this topic, but if you wouldn’t mind, can you elaborate a little more about that? If you want to, and have some time, you could send me a PM?
Well, it sounds like from the above that if I want to stick with a Pi, and given my general lack of experience and knowledge of many areas related to this, I may be better off with a HA Yellow, and a M.2 SSD. Although I think I may have to wait awhile until they are available again. That choice would also get me a little bit of a head start with radios.
I would probably retire the Hubitat. If I do get a Yellow the only radio the Hubitat has that I would need is Zwave, and I have read a few things about newer chips which are, maybe significantly, better than what it has. I would also need to add IR and maybe Bluetooth.
Question: If I get a M.2 SSD, I believe the unit can boot (HA OS) off it, and use it for all needed storage. That would mean that any onboard storage on a CM4 (8, 16 or 32GB I think) would be redundant. Is this correct? Or would it be better to install/boot using the onboard storage and use the SSD for everything else?
Also look at the HA Green (the brand new one) specs look good. But you have to BYO radios (IMHO not a bad idea)
They announced it on HA’s 10th birthday almost two weeks ago and some folks on the community sites are already asking questions about how to set them up.
I’m also a Hubitat convert. I already had a home server setup, so I’m running HA in a VM…so not much help there.
I will say that I’ve been using the Zooz ZST10 with HA and it has been rock solid. I did modify mine to add a full length antenna but I hardly think it was necessary.
As for compute resources, starting off, you won’t need much. Unless you get into some of the heavier hitting add-ons (like Frigate with object recognition) you’ll be good for a while.
Once you get your feet under you, start diving down the rabbit hole that is ESP. It’ll have you rethinking a lot of your Z-Wave stuff
Like others, I would recommend the HAOS install option, as it s designed to include everything and be easiest to setup and use.
I stopped recommending RasPi’s because they were almost impossible to get; instead leaning towards used SFF PCs (I personally upgraded to a Dell OptiPlex 7050 SFF from ebay). You can still install HAOS directly, or as a Virtual Machine (VM) which allows you to use the extra processing for other things (like shared Network Attached Storage (NAS)). Don’t worry - it’s easy to backup your running HA configuration and restore it on another machine if you want to change things around later on.
I have recently seen stock of RasPi 4 at suppliers - and today the Raspberry Pi 5 has been released with > 2x performance of RasPi 4 at a slightly higher cost; and stock available end October - so that option looks to be back on the table. If going with any RasPi variant, i would point out that you can’t increase RAM later (like on a regular PC) so probably better to spend a little more up front to get a model with more RAM. And yes, when I was running off a RasPi 4 with HAOS, it can boot directly from a SSD (though for a RasPi 4 it us external connected by USB) without a SD installed - there are instructions for configuring this.
On a personal note, welcome to HA. I see the sheer number of integrations and amount of development effort being contributed as being both it’s main feature … and biggest challenge trying to keep up
Edit: Oops, RasPi 5 has greater than 2x performance of RasPi4
I wasn’t sure what ESP was when I read this, but I’ve read a little about it since then and it sound interesting. However, I’m not sure I will ever go down that rabbit hole . For Zwave I only have one motion sensor (it’s a Zooz 4-in-1), and Zooz appliance module for monitoring the power draw on my refrigerator, so right now there is not much to rethink. But, since I seem to like Zooz the ZST10 looks like a good choice for a Zwave controller.
It looks like that’s the way I’m going, since I just took a bit of a leap and ordered a HA Yellow, and a CM4 with 8GB RAM / 32GB storage, and M.2 device. I will have to load HAOS myself, but I’ve installed other OS’s, including Linux, before so I’m not to concerned about getting it up and running. Actually I’m always a little unsure about getting the SD properly configured to boot up, but the rest of it should be cake (I should never say that).
Funny story about ordering the system. On the HA Yellow page (on Seeed Studio) it had an external antenna offered for $5. External antennas aren’t always needed but I figured it couldn’t hurt for that price. Later when I was thinking about it I check the specs for the Yellow again and it doesn’t look like there’s a place to connect an external antenna lead, so I guess I now have a spare antenna .
I would very strongly suggest you want it to boot up from an SSD. The difference in overall speed of the operation oft he entire system is faster by several orders of magnitude!
LOL!
I have almost 100 devices (according to an IP scan of my network) and at least a quarter of them are Expressif devices. (ESP). Building my own devices using an ESP-based development board and ESPHome is surprisingly easy. I am building a Halloween prop that, so far, has seven ESP boards controlling lights, servos and human presence. (Make that eight).
Because ESP devices are so common in so many devices, you will be going down that rabbit hole whether you intend to or not.
Thanks for reminding me. My current hub is connected by ethernet and I was planning on connecting Home Assistant the same way. WiFi would just offer a little freedom if I ever decided to try other locations until I ran a cable there.
Oh, booting from SD would only be for the install. But, since the CM4 has 32GB onboard storage I was thinking I could install HAOS there, and direct it to use the SSD for everything else. I’m saying that not knowing a thing about the choices for storage locations for anything at this point, and not knowing space requirements either. But I’m sure it will all work out :-).
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20GB 
. For Zwave I only have one motion sensor (it’s a Zooz 4-in-1), and Zooz appliance module for monitoring the power draw on my refrigerator, so right now there is not much to rethink. But, since I seem to like Zooz the ZST10 looks like a good choice for a Zwave controller.