Hi all, I am new here and new to Home Assistant. My journey has not started well… I have ordered Home Assistant Yellow but the webshop offering didn’t have any kits with RPi 4 Compute Module but they had some other RPi 4 which for me, who is totally noob in Raspberry PI was no difference. So now I have HA Yellow and an OKdo Raspberry Pi 4 – 4 GB Starter Kit. This OKdo Raspberry Pi4 does not fit into the HA Yellow since it is bigger.
What are my options now? Should I return the OKdo and wait for the Compute Module to appear somewhere and order it there? Or should I install HA on the OKdo thing and return the HA Yellow? What are the differences?
Based on this article (https://peyanski.com/home-assistant-yellow-pros-cons/) I guess I should maybe stay with the OKdo thing and get some additional sticks to get Z-wave working but I am not sure I get it right.
You’ll find many threads on hardware choices if you search. The normal recommendation is to skip the Pi completely.
Just about any second hand PC/small form factor PC/laptop from the last decade will be better.
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jchh
(my username is my initials (and my first name isn't John))
3
I use a RPi 4 2GB with a Sonoff Zigbee USB stick (Mosquitto & Z2M) and an SSD (not SD card). Actually I have 2 setups like this (for 2 locations) and have just bought a 3rd as the RPIs are now back in stock at reasonable prices.
They’ve worked flawlessly for several years now. The have low power consumption and enough grunt for my ~70 devices; Hue, Aqara Dyson, Ring doorbell, EV charger, Linkup water irrigation, Hive (water & heating) and a bunch of RESTful and Scrape sensors.
However, I don’t do any video processing and that is probably why the Pi is enough for me. If you think you want to use video or any other processor heavy service then follow @Tinkerer’s advice.
Thank you for both answers. Just one more question: do I understand it right that there are no benefits of HA Yellow over the “raw” RPi 4 except for the Zigbee module?
A HA Yellow is powered by RPi4 compute module - so yes, essentially the same device despite the Yellow has some peripherals like that z-module and a rtc
And will be cheaper also - depending where you live. Even a new mini pc with basic intel processor some ram and flash might outrun a raspberry not only in performance but maybe even the acquisition costs (mini pc with ram/flash/housing/psu) for the complete setup.
You say it is recommended to skip the pi completely. But I am wondering about the case where you are off the grid, and NEED to be as energy efficient as possible, would a pi consume less?`
Maybe… A Pi4 + powered USB hub + SSD would be the minimum spec I’d suggest, since on an SD card it’s just a question of when that SD dies on you. The power draw of that is likely similar to a second hand lower power laptop. My old i5 laptop had a peak draw of 40W - with the display and GPU in heavy use. With both off and the HDD replaced by an SSD peak draw was a lot lower, around the same level as Pi4 + powered hub + SSD.
I believe it’s just a question of when any device dies on you. SSDs may last longer than an SD card but both can fail; therefore, always have a backup you know works. I have been running a RP4+SD for the past 4 years without any failure. I use Win32DiskImager to make a copy of the current running SD card every month (I have 4 SD cards in the backup rotation set).
So, if you are looking to conserve energy, you can run an SD card. I have also noticed that my RP4 consumes more energy when using the ethernet port for the LAN connection (the onboard wifi uses less power).
So while the Raspberry used processor is newer it uses very old lithogrpahy and has a worse performance/watt ratio then the older entry-level notebook cpu
Most people stock old phones in drawers which come with battery backup integrated and designed very energy efficient. If you can own your phone your should be able running HA on it
