Home assistant hardware

edwardhadders · September 16, 2020, 5:17pm

Dear community,

The last few week i’m have trouble with the performance of my rasberry pi 3b+.
restarting home assistant takes over 5 min and i’m looking for alternative ways to host my home assistant.
for my job i’m using a lot of windows server hyper-v so i prefer running it in a vm but i’m using rfxtrx device for some switches and my doorbell and i’m thinking of buying a conbee 2.
i found a hacs intergration called home-assistant remote and this is working but sometings there is a delay when i change a status of my switch.
are there any alternative ways to combine 2 instances of home assistant or is the best way to solve my problem to buy a intel nuc?

thank you
Edward

code-in-progress · September 16, 2020, 5:32pm

Personally, I’d go with a Nuc or a rPI4 to replace the rPi3b+. The Nuc would be optimal, but a Pi4 can run HA just as well.

brahmafear · September 17, 2020, 1:19am

Hyper-V should have usb pass through (I know vsphere does) which would allow you to use the rfxtrx and Conbee ii with your VM.

nickrout · September 17, 2020, 7:37am

Stop advertising Intel

Any x86-64 will do!

kanga_who · September 17, 2020, 8:05am

@edwardhadders This.

I can recommend old workstations like a Dell Optiplex from eBay for under $100. Great BYFB. In many cases, much cheaper that buying a Pi4+SSD/SD+PSU+Case, and more versatile.

code-in-progress · September 17, 2020, 11:46am

Dell Optiplex 9020 #FTMFW. I have 4 of them running in my server cabinet. A little tight on space internally, but the damn things are built like tanks.

edwardhadders · September 17, 2020, 5:03pm

Thanks for all the reactions
Is there any instruction for installing on custom hardware? Or do i need to install Linux on it?

code-in-progress · September 17, 2020, 5:13pm

If you go with a RPi4, there’s a prebuilt image you flash to a SD card (or SSD or USB flashdrive, etc) that you can use. Or, you can install Linux and download a Docker container (which is how I usually roll).

Either method is really easy and described https://www.home-assistant.io/getting-started/ and https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/installation/

The Docker install is super easy.

If you go with other hardware (again, Dell Optiplex 9020 #FTMFW!), just install any Linux distro on it (Ubuntu and Debian based distros work very well) and use the Docker method.

edwardhadders · September 17, 2020, 5:24pm

For my work we use only Windows servers no Linux based servers so i have zero experience with Linux and dockers
What i like about home assistant os is that i van update it trough the ui

code-in-progress · September 17, 2020, 5:26pm

LEARN LINUX! (No really… it’s actually super easy compared to even 5 years ago).

With that said, I’d go with a rPI4 2GB model and just use the Home Assistant system install. You flash it, pop it into the Pi (like you are doing today) and you’re off to the races.

edwardhadders · September 17, 2020, 5:33pm

Haha maybe i will it a try
But is there no way to combine home assistant installations?

code-in-progress · September 17, 2020, 5:35pm

Ohhhh, you mean take your existing system and port it over to a new one?

Yup, take a snapshot of your current system. Install the new one, restore the snapshot from the old one.

edwardhadders · September 17, 2020, 5:45pm

No thats not what i meant.
I want to run a home assistant installation in a pi3b+ and my hyper-v vm.
And i Will use my pi for usb devices en my vm for all the automations
There is a hacs intergration home-assistant remote that can pull all your devices from a other installation.
In that way i can create a master and slave

code-in-progress · September 17, 2020, 5:48pm

Ah, gotcha. Yes, you absolutely can do it that way.

edwardhadders · September 17, 2020, 5:56pm

Thank you for your help i think i Will go for Ubuntu with docker

code-in-progress · September 17, 2020, 5:58pm

You won’t be disappointed and if you have questions, there’s a whole TON of Linux guys here (besides me)