Migrate Home Assistant Core to Home Assistant Supervised

Installation
1

I am running Home Assistant Core on a Raspberry Pi 3 with Debian 11. I installed the system with command line according to

With the missing app store, I see an increasing need to move on to Home Assistant Supervised which is offering more capabilities and convenience. I know I could just format the sdcard and start from scratch. Most likely using this thread:
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/installing-home-assistant-supervised-on-debian-11/
But then I would need to start from scratch.

The setup so far is quite simple as there are no rules (yet). The twenty one-wire DS18B20 sensors are monitored and are working fine. As well as some wifi switches.

I am wondering if there is an intelligent way to upgrade an existing (working) system from Core to Supervised.

2

Supervised is a trap… there’s no intelligent way to run it.

If you want “the app store” (add-ons) flash Home Assistant OS. You can take a backup from your current install and restore it to the new install.

2 Likes
3

Update Core to latest version

Verify working

Backup

Install supervised (same version as core)

Restore backup

4

Can you elaborate on that trap ?

I am newbie to Home Assistant and coming from OpenHab. OpenHab did store the UI configuration in a database which was not accessible to me. Manual entries in text files are stored in a different way. The OS is clumsy and restriced. That made me to start over with Home Assistant on Debian 11 ( because I am comfortable with Debian ) and not using the Home Assistant OS.

5

Supervised has to be installed following the requirements exactly. Many people assume that there’s some wiggle room, that you don’t really need to use Debian, or that you can install other software without issues. Or they assume that the requirements never change.

Then they come here, or to Discord/Reddit/Facebook, pissed off and with a system that’s no longer working and ask how to fix it.

The only time that Supervised makes sense is when you really want add-ons but your hardware can’t book HAOS. Even then, it only makes sense if you’re already a Linux and Docker expert since you have to manage that host just right.

For most people using either HAOS (want add-ons) or Container (want to install other software yourself) are the best choices. Core exists for those *nix geeks who’re at home installing software from source (since you get to do that with Python every other year).

6

Thank you for this explanation. As I am close to the *nix guys you are describing but not a Debian expert, I will go for the Container. (First one ever, as I think that additional layer does not do any good to speed of the system or stability). Appreciate your insights.

7

I take it you didn’t spot that HAOS and Supervised also use Docker?

8

You got it. I did not see that information in the docs. But I guess I have to bite the bullet…

I am spending too much time figuring out the system, like how to run multiple one wire sensors on a HA (Home Assistant), where HA does not support one-wire anymore. Doing it on Debian is straight forward, HA is very reluctant, but I like the concept having one webpage to see what is going on.

My fear with the HAOS is that I do not have any access through that layer anymore to fix issues with the setup. And there will be issues, like change of whatever program (eg no more python 3.11 :wink: )
Hence, I rather have access to the operating system.