Hello everyone,
First post here!
I am thinking of moving from Smartthings to Home Assistant. I have ordered a Rp4 but it is taking time as there is shortage. I have a mini pc available which I got it from work. I have attached some picture with specs.
My question is
I would appreciate your advice.
Regards
Hi Templeton_nash
Thank you very much for your reply. Thats great!
I was just concerned about 2GB ram on it, Is that it enough to run HA? HDD is only 60GB but I am guessing that should be enough?
My peak RAM usage is about 1.6 GB.
In any case, I suspect you’d be able to upgrade the RAM in your PC.
For the first steps it should be enough.
If you want to install more and more addons, your memory will become a bottleneck.
But if this would be an issue in future, you can make a full backup, install HAOS on a new machine and import the backup there.
I am using a bigger MiniPC which has Proxmox installed (but way bigger CPU and RAM) and HAOS as virtual machine.
For your mini pc I would recommend to directly install the generic HAOS image.
Have fun with HA and at this community.
Thanks Christian for your response and thanks for the welcome!
Like the previous posted said, if I upgrade the memory, would this hold good for a long time. I do not want to switch soon, if I can avoid it. How about the processor on this? Is it decent enough?
Thanks
As always at IT projects: It depends. 
If you will not use addons which needs a lot of cpu or memory, it should be enough.
I think it would be enough for standard HA setup with some smaller addons, but do not expect to run a media transcoder on it for example.
It should be absolutely find when you want to use for example:
You could get issues with things like:
I will try to start with it and looking at the hardware stats.
A HAOS installation is done quite quickly on a new machine if really needed.
Nobody will be able to tell you if it works for the next 10 years and all addons you will install in future.
Even professional ITs can only plan the current need and a buffer and will check on a regular basis if the machine suits changed needs still.
Sorry for this answer, but I think thats the honest one you can get without a detailed list of your smart home plan.
You have 2 cores up to 2GHz, 2GB RAM and 60GB disk. This system should be faster than any RPi you can buy. System is fine and it will be no problem even if you hammer it with add-ons and HACS packages. I would say save your money and cancel the RPi order.
I have systems running on > 200 devices on similar specs. But no NAS or NVR on this system spec.
Not so sure about that. Passmark for the pi4 is about 900. That Celeron is only 489.
Thanks for all the messages. I will give it a try. Will try and get a 8GB ram and see
My devices are mostly zigbee. I have bought a conbee zigbee stick. Does the conbee stick work straightaway with HA or do I need to install any addons?
Most of the zigbee devices should be able to be used with ZHA (no addon needed).
The device support of Zigbee2MQTT is a bit better.
You can see at this website if ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT is supporting the device:
If you need to use Zigbee2MQTT, you will also need a MQTT broker like Mosquitto or EMQX. First one should work fine if you have no special needs like access control lists.
Be aware that you should use the short extension cable and do not plug the stick directly into the machine.
Thank you so much. It is very helpful. I was not aware that I need to use an extension cable for the zigbee stick. Wonder what is the reason for this?
Interference. A lot of radio controllers (Zigbee, Zwave, DVB-T and so on) suffer from being disturbed, when attached directly to the USB ports on a machine.
Placing them a bit away on a extension cable eliminates this influence.
Thanks! How long cable would you suggest? Do we need a 1m cable and there are as short as 10 cm cables
I’m using 0,5 m cable with no issues. No experience with any shorter.
Would increasing the RAM speed up the system? Or is it mainly based on the processor speed? Just wanted to clarify before upgrading the RAM
Zigbee and WiFi operate on the 2.4 GHz radio frequency bands. When you have the devices too close to each other both are subject to desense. That is, when one is transmitting, the other will not be able to receive data because its receiver is overloaded with adjacent-channel RF energy. The result is poor performance of both devices. Physical separation is the best way to reduce this problem. The further the better.
Thanks. Makes sense. I wonder how dedicated devices like smarthings hub manage this situation as they have Z wave, Zigbee and Wifi all in one device?
