The recent blog post on the Yellow finally made me get the credit card out and start the move to a new server. My current HA is a Pi 4 with 8GB, but the OS is on an SD card, with an SSD (where HA lives) attached via a USB port and the fan is too loud. My 40-ish Zigbee devices are through a Skyconnect. I also have a Z-Wave dongle. Both dongles are at the end of long USB extention cords.
The new one will be a Yellow, same 8GB RAM, and will use an NVMe drive for storage. I’m hoping to use the integrated radio for my Zigbee, my current Z-Wave dongle for the handful (half dozen) Z-Wave devices and maybe reuse the Skyconnect for Matter. (I have two devices I haven’t connected yet.) I’m used to a container install and will try to do that again (I like the control), but if that’s too hard, I don’t mind using the HA OS.
Does that sound reasonable?
Is it going to be easy to migrate my Zigbee devices to the new radio? I have acquired a few (in the wall) smart switches and plugs that would be a bit painful to have to re-pair.
I use the Auto Backup integration, so have good (hourly) backups. I assume I can restore most of it, with the integration settings, etc., right?
Sorry, forgot to link it. It’s linked now. It doesn’t say anything important really (I would have gone with the kit regardless), but it just reminded me that I needed to do something like this soon-ish.
TL;DR: We will now only sell the Home Assistant Yellow as a kit, which requires the separate purchase of a CM4. Home Assistant Green is the best plug-and-play option for beginners.
Well, if you have to get the CM4 unit yourself (and not knowing whether this is even possible yet) you might want to consider the CM5 to be more future-proof? I have a friend who is also running HA container on a Pi5 and he says it is much faster than his Pi4 (but this is anecdotal).
~40 Zigbee devices is not too much - I have ~80 via Z2M.
Out of curiosity, why do you want to shell out for a Yellow (assuming your PI4 works OK)?
From a pi to a yellow you won’t notice much if any difference. Why bother. If you’re stressing a Pi48 you’ll probably stress the yellow. (depending on your CM as noted above) Its good kit but you’re wasting your money. IMHO
Also… I was successful running HAOS on a Pi48g for three years but there’s absolutely zero way I’d try to run supervised or anything besides HAOS on it. Not enough beef for my use.
Now… moving to a NUC w 16G… Different story. Even a relatively ‘small’ NUC has way more pep for the spend and the box screams with the very same HAOS installation.
If you’re on a version that includes supervisor backup will get everything. If you only have core - backup will capture your full HA config. Just install new to your chosen architecture move the sticks and then restore your backup. That easy. It’s architecture agnostic.
Sorry for hijacking this topic. But my question is somewhat related and helpful.
I’m contemplating going from docker on Pi4 to HAOS in Proxmox on a home lab server. Do you happen to know if it’s possible to restore a core backup to a HAOS install?
Moving to a proper SSD is certainly a big improvement. I use a Pi 4 with a SSD attached to USB3, and it is much more performant than my previous installation on a SD card. SSDs are also much more reliable obviously.
The yellow is a nice package. But I would wait for a CM5 release and invest in a cheap SSD with a case in the meantime. Maybe you already have one lying around.
Moving your installation to a new disk is some work, but I think you should be able to find good instructions for that here or on other forums.
I would recommend this option over the Yellow. You gain so much from moving the installation into a virtualized layer, and if the hardware is decent the performance is better too. Just having the possibility to do full snapshots is worth it alone. I run a virtualized setup and I tend to do manual snapshots before I upgrade. If I need to roll back it’s done in a couple of seconds.
Thanks. I understand the tradeoffs. I have a NUC, but HA on the Pi is plenty fast enough and is very, very energy efficient. It’s more the reliability that I’m after. Speed isn’t needed for this and I just use NUC for something where I do need the speed.
What does virtualisation do for you that Docker doesn’t, out of curiosity? I can roll back in a few seconds too, just by changing the tag in the docker-compose.yml file.
As I’m typing this, I realise you mean the filesystem and database. Yeah, I could see the benefits with that. I’ve never needed, mind you, but there’s always a first time.
I never excluded docker from virtualization. I’m talking about bare metal vs virtualization. If he alteady has a homelab he can use for Proxmox, do that instead of buying dedicated HW.
In my case I have two hypervisors that I live can move my HAOS vm between, they have shared storage - if one needs maintanence I can move the vm. If one goes down, it starts up on the other. You can do backups of the whole machine. Just to name a few benefits over dedicated HW / bare metal.
As outlined in the OP, in the first paragraph, the current server is a hodgepodge of lessons learned… The SD card + a USB disk, and a fan that kicks off about once every three minutes (and is too noticeable because the Pi is in the living room).
The Yellow is just my attempt to do the same thing, but applying all of my lessons. I don’t notice an issue with speed, just noise, and I’m worried about that SD card. I do not have the most extensive smart home, but it’s gotten to the point now that if it went down, it would be painful.
Given that the current processor has done me well for four years, I don’t feel the need to beef up the server. I just want it quietier and more reliable.
I like the Pi. It’s just enough computing, no more. I’m a software engineer and play around with ridiculous big and fast machines. I don’t need that on my living room shelf, next to the picture of the dog…
Has anyone any experience with the Zigbee radio in the Yellow? Is it at least comparable to the Skyconnect dongle? Will it be hard to move my network to that new radio? I’m using ZHA, btw.
A much smaller Mini-PC from eBay does the job nice as well. That would be the Volkswagen. 