I’ve been running HA on a Pi3 running Buster for about 3 years now. All my devices are using only zwave or mqtt. I have a combo zigbee/zwave usb stick. All my data is stored on an external USB SSD. In general I DON’T ride the upgrade train doing software upgrades because stuff almost always breaks and I hate wasting time trying to fix what updates break. If it works don’t mess with it in other words.
Recently I’m running to problems with my Pi3 losing wifi connections. Trying to update/upgrade Buster on a live HA setup isn’t a good idea IMHO.
Here’s my question:
I’m considering either switching HA to a Pi4 running on a USB SSD (I have one sitting on a shelf)
OR
I’ve recently been looking at the HA Yellow Kit
What are the benefits of HA Yellow? Built in zigbee isn’t useful to me so I still have to use my zwave usb stick. HA Yellow is $175 + $100 for a CM4 with 4GB RAM and 16GB eMMC (only one in stock) + up to $100 for ~1TB m.2 SSD. Is the HA Yellow really worth a $400 upgrade?
Can you plug the PI3 into an ethernet cable and then disable wifi on just the RPI to completely resolve your RPI wifi issue as a first step? Ideally in any upgrade you’d want ethernet anyway wherever possible -
I very much doubt that a new hardware will help when @notspam continues to use wifi (instead of ethernet) and skips updates which in most cases improve the status quo in terms of hard- and software.
Wifi or hard wired ethernet is irrelevant to me as nothing is controlled via ethernet. It’s all z-wave for my switches controlled by my HA which is essentially a timer and pretty data logger. I use wifi to occasionally access HA to look at pretty and formatted data collected on HA. Maybe remotely turn on/off a light switch now and then.
The reason my wifi crapped out is because raspberry pi relies on SD cards - unreliable tech and a poor choice in OS data storage IMHO. I’m not asking for opinions on the value of constantly upgrading software for the sake of upgrading software. There is ZERO benefit to me to allow my HA and OS update itself.unless I need to add functionality.
CM4’s can be bought with WiFi. HA Yellow doesn’t have wifi on the board because it doesn’t need it. The only theoretical benefit I see at this point to HAY is the m.2 data storage but even that has limited m.2 hardware compatibility. At this point I see HAY as an overpriced daughter board that has some support from the HA community.
If I wanted to waste some spare time I’d probably consider installing HA on a beaglebone or similar SBC running openwrt to get away from the Pi hardware limitations.
What does have your crapped out WiFi has to do with a not crapped out SD card?
My first ha install was running over 3 years on a (class A1) SD card which still works as of today.
IMHO that very much depends how much the user took care about choosing the correct SD card for the task (spoiler: it’s not the ones that claim “endurance”) and how much thought went into the data logging aspect (e.g. simple things like the recorder commit_interval)
Or improves hardware support? Not sure on which ancient version you stuck but support for WiFi chipsets often improves even many years after they were introduced. Newer kernels can have great impact on performance and stabilty (by the looks you lack the later).
First thing would be really just to update your (ha) system to the latest and greatest version to find out if your problems were actually home made (because you running some stone old versions)
I very much doubt that you would gain any improvements - sounds rather like a more Frankenstein setup which would probably even degrade your status quo.
Maybe invest some little time to backup your installation, switch to a proper SD card (if you aren’t already) and give HaOS a try. It will should take away most of your fear/possibilities of breaking things when upgrading because all updates (from OS down to HA core) are handled directly in HA!
And HA supervised (if that is what @notspam is using), can’t be installed (supported) on debian buster for more than 2 years.
Maybe a HA version 0.XX is still running for you @nospam?
In any case it looks like HA isn’t the right choice for your fancy data logger application. Maybe try fhem or something else and see if you get happy with that. Good luck!
I’m trying to find a new hardware solution here in my posts…I’m not asking anyone for advice how to config my software. If I wanted someone else’s software and updates I’d just buy something like a Samsung SmartThings toaster and let the “internet” solve all my problems.
I plan to start a new HA install from scratch I have not interest in trying to recover settings from a backup file.
So for your own sake choose a hardware (like a raspberry 3 which looks like to be more than sufficient for your data logging purpose) which is supported by HAOS because by the looks of it you weren’t able to cope with the necessary responsibility/time to keep your core/docker/supervisor install up2date in the past.
In case you want to spend money your best/fastest route is probably a HA Green
I’m ditching the Pi route and running HAOS on a VM…by far the cheapest and fastest route. Transferring all my devices over was easy because they are already registered to my zwave/zigbee usb stick. The pain is redoing all my automations due to changes in HAOS making old config files incompatible.
These Pi based systems (HAG and HAY) are way over priced for what you get only to shoot yourself in the foot by having to rely on a microSD card. I consider myself lucky to have got 3+ years out of my old device.
FYI I can get an intel based system with 16GB Ram and 1TB m.2 SSD cheaper than a HAY plus CM4. With VM I can be hardware agnostic.
this post!