Hello. I have Home Assistant 104.3 and hass.io 3.7 running on a Raspberry Pi 3 +. Have sensor data feeding to an ESP8266 and then to the Pi via MQTT and all is working as expected. I can view the HA interface via a browser on another computer.
My question is why 3 computers? (ESP mini controller, RasPi and a third to view HA).
The Raspberry Pi has an HDMI output, and if running something like NOOBS OS, one can simply plug into the HDMI port to view the GUI.
If I plug my monitor into the RasPi HDMI port, I can watch the OS bootup, but after that, why can I not see the HA screens, but rather need a third computer to do so?
Is the Pi not powerful enough to run Home Assistant plus a GUI?
( I did browse through the other questions asked in this section of the Forum, but did not see anything similar)
Granted this is a new-guy question, but thanks in advance to anyone who wants to take the time to answer it in a fashion that I can understand.
It is designed as a headless appliance and is not running a GUI on the local host. You typically do not even need to connect the HDMI port to a console.
The pi3 (minimum requirement) has 1GB of memory (I know a pi 4 can have upto 4 GB) but some of that would have to be allocated to act as graphic memory. This would compromise both.
Who will you blame when your processing bottlenecks or items don’t get updated when they are queued for output. ?
A pi costs less than $50, what does a monitor cost.?
Do you access the Internet.?
What do you use ?
So use that
I guess the other point to think about is that once you get things up and running, the goal (at least for me) is of the automation to just work, so I don’t typically need to even pull up the web UI except for updates and the occasional maintenance.
Hello. Thanks for your response. I had guessed that the reason might be because of the relatively low amount of memory available, which matches what you said.
Yes, I do access the Internet (as evidenced by the fact that I posted a question), however, I’m looking for separate solution. I use a Dell XPS laptop for typing these messages, plus other computer work, attached to a 55" TV-monitor, and don’t want to leave it running all day just to view the HA screens. I’d much rather view HA via the HDMI port of the Pi (if it was possible somehow) and just leave that monitor and the Pi running.
It could be a much smaller device than this big screen tv, and I could leave it on all day and night, if I wanted. to.
Yes, I can continue to view HA through this setup that I’m typing this on, but that was not the intent of posting my question.
Would upgrading to a Pi 4 with 4 GB of RAM be enough?
thanks again for your input
I think you have a few options. The HassIO install on HassOS does not include a full GUI (ie no x-windows, therefore no web browser). You could rebuild using one of the other methods which use a OS that provides x-windows and install HA either in a virtual python environment or with docker containers. Another option would be to keep your current setup and then add another Pi to use as a desktop/display. You could leave it connected to your display and have a web browser with the HA web page up.
Depending on how much stuff you have on HA it is fairly thrifty. Mine averages ~25% memory and ~3% cpu on a pi3b. It supports around 22 zwave devices and a few others via mqtt.
I believe you’ve hit it with your second option. Unless someone posts a better way, I will probably just purchase a second Pi and a 7" touch screen to go with it.
[Added:] Meanwhile, I’m sitting here listening to music over my iPad and realize that instead of buying another Pi plus a touch screen, I can just bring up the HA in a browser on the iPad. Duh.
Doesn’t eliminate the third “computer”, but I leave the iPad plugged in, so it is effectively on all day and night anyway.
thanks
john
I feel that I have failed if I have to interact with HA to get stuff done.
The point is to automate stuff wherever I can.
But not sure you need another pi, why not just buy a cheap tablet (say an amazon fire 7 inch) and either stick it on the wall with a power lead connected or on a table.
Some people wire it with wireless charging or hide the connections in the wall
So do I, mostly because I already have it and so don’t need to buy anything additional. Plus it’s larger than the 7" touch screen sold for Pi’s.
Now to get a MQTT server installed to it, so that I can eliminate the Pi altogether. If you know of a discussion of that topic here on this Forum, could you point me to it?
thanks again!
MQTT is pretty easy to set up, there are plenty of examples on the internet. It just needs to be on something that is always on. I have a second Pi running Pi-Hole and my MQTT server. I would also grab a copy of MQTT Explorer, as it is really helpful in seeing what is going on or cleaning up old topics on your mqtt server.
To me, a possibility to add a touchscreen (in fact, i’ve now one on my desk, just arrived) is more or less to view the current status of everything i’ve in my home…
Any doors / windows open? Is the washing machine still running? Did i get any (physical) mail in the meanwhile? How’s the weather going to be tomorrow when a buddy arrives, as i just took a glance on my calendar and hey, time flies…
The display will be mounted in a pretty central place, i’ve also a motion sensor on order which will switch it on if it goes to sleep etc…
Ideally, i don’t need yet another RaspberryPi for this
