Need Help Installing Hass.io on Rasberry Pi Zero Wireless

Installation Home Assistant OS
1

Greetings, I hope I’m posting in the right forum and thanks in advance for those who are willing to chime in.

Steps I’ve taken so far:

  1. Downloaded Pi/Zero image from this page

  2. Used Etcher to write the image to a 32Gb Class 10 MicroSD Card

Potential Issues:
As soon as the image is written and verified by Etcher, I got a lot of popups with following messages:

Popup 1:
“Location is not available; The parameter is incorrect”
Popup 2:
“You need to format the disk in drive G: before you can use it. Do you want to format it?”
Popup 3:
“The volume does not contain a recognized file system. Please make sure that all required file system drivers are loaded and that the volume is not corrupted.”

For each drive that the image created (Drive G, H, I), it popped up the three messages above, ie total of 9 errors. After clicking “Cancel” or “OK” to close all those messages, resin-boot is in Drive F, with 24.8Mb used and 15Mb free (Total 39.9Mb).

I used DISKPART to repartition, format the card, then rewrite the image with Etcher multiple times, still ended up to the same situation.

Step 3: Then I decided to ignore it and move on according to the instruction, trying to setup wifi.

In system-connections folder, I made a copy of resin-sample file and saved it as resin-wifi. I used Notepad++ to modify the file, by replacing ssid= and psk=. I also added never-default=true as well as ignore-auto-routes=true

Step 4: Finally, I plugged in the card to the Pi Zero Wireless, with power supply that outputs 1A. The green light on Pi Zero Wireless came on, flashed for a minute or so, then stayed on.

I used Fing app on my android tablet, and did not see the Pi Zero connecting to the router.

I hope I have put enough information here that some of you can help troubleshoot… your help is greatly appreciated!

2

the 3 popups are all to be expected as Windows does not recognise the ext4 partitions the image flashing creates.
Sounds like the ssid or psk are wrong? remember the ssid is case sensitive. ALso do you have MAC filtering on the router?

Also maybe post your resin-wifi file

3

Thank you @DavidFW1960,

I verified the SSID case matches with the one on router. I also verified the password by “forgetting” the wifi config on another device, and re-entering it again, so I’m quite confident psk value is correct.

I do not have MAC address filtering turned on; Recently I added Arlo and Nest products without the need to change settings on router.

Here’s my resin-wifi file:

[connection]
id=resin-sample
type=wifi

[wifi]
hidden=true
mode=infrastructure
ssid=MySSID

[wifi-security]
auth-alg=open
key-mgmt=wpa-psk
psk=MyWiFiPassword

[ipv4]
never-default=true
ignore-auto-routes=true
method=auto

[ipv6]
addr-gen-mode=stable-privacy
method=auto

4

I’m able to see the Pi Zero in Fing after leaving it on for 5 hours, maybe I just wasn’t patient enough :slight_smile: I’m also getting response back by pinging it, just that I’m not able to access it via http://hassio.local:8123, nor by its IP http://192.168.1.154:8123

5

Hi Lagoonfish,
I have just bought a Pi Zero W and got HA up and running. I am very new at this so no expert.
I used etcher to flash the hassio image. Ignored the popups.
Created a file using notepad.exe and saved it as wpa_supplicant.conf in the Boot partition of the SD card.
In the wpa_supplicant.conf file I added:

country=GB [you will need to put your country’s abbreviation here]
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

network={
ssid=“my ssid and leave the quotes in”
psk=“my password and leave the quote in”
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}

I plugged in the power and by the time I had opened the admin page on my router the Pi Zero was showing up as hassbian. From that I got the ip address then used Putty to SSH into the Pi Zero using the username pi and password raspberry.
Then inputted

sudo systemctl enable install_homeassistant.service
sudo systemctl start install_homeassistant.service

It then took about 20 mins before Homeassistant loaded into a browser using its ip address:8123

And then I tried to register z wave modules using zwave.me USB stick without any success but that’s another story.

I hope this helps!

6

The OP is using Hassio not Hassbian.

7

David, thanks for pointing this out. Apologies for causing any confusion. What are the pros and cons of using Hassio vs Hassbian on a Pi Zero?

8

No way on earth I would try running hassio on a Pi Zero. It just doesn’t have enough resources to provide a good user experience. Hassio on anything less than a Pi 3 will be very frustrating for the user.

9

OK thanks for this. Perhaps the reason Lagoonfish is having problems is because he is using Hassio on a Pi Zero?

10

Perhaps. It seems it is eventually getting on his network. I’d expect it to take a while (maybe more than a few hours) before he can do anything with it. I don’t have a Pi zero so I’ve never tried it. I was originally running the all-in-one version (now depreciated) which is effectively Hassbian on a Pi1B and it was pretty painful on that.

I’m pretty biased I think. For the $35 cost of these devices why anyone would bother long term with anything less than a Pi3 for Home Assistant is beyond me.

11

I actually started with HASSbian (the blog link) and couldn’t get the Pi to WiFi. Then I found another discussion on the forum that one user was not able to get the Pi Zero W to join WiFi, that’s why I decided to give Hass.io a try.

Could you point out the link where you obtained the image image?

12

@DavidFW1960 I got the Pi Zero W and the housing for less than US$7 on Pi Day, and decided to give it a try with Home Assistant. I was aware that the hardware is underpowered, but based on initial research and my own interest, that it’s reasonably simple enough for me to play with as a beginner project. The only smart things I have at home are Skybell, Arlo and Nest Protect. My intention was to use it as a starting point to expand on Smart Home integration.

Getting back to tackling my current problem: I have read some threads on the forum that people are not able to ssh or access the portal without solution. Maybe there’re some log files that I can start digging if the Home Assistant was running as expected? (I don’t see any .log files in the boot volume)

13

Hi lagoongish
The link to the Hassbian image is https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/installation/hassbian/installation/

15

I didn’t have to run the enable/start commands and the hassbian updated and started itself. I’m able to access the UI now.

However how do I access the config file? When I ssh into the pi, I got this message…

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@ WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED! @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY!
Someone could be eavesdropping on you right now (man-in-the-middle attack)!
It is also possible that a host key has just been changed.

16

Hi Lagoonfish.

I also have a RPiZeroW with Hassio running. For my purpose (couple of miflora sensors, tlink wifi plug etc.) its reasonable fast.

As for the config-file: Forget about SSH, just enable the Samba-Addon. (it’s one of the official add-ons already avaiblable in a clean install) :slight_smile: No command-line action via SSH necessary.

The only thing, that I can’t get running on the PiZeroW is Influx+Grafana. Worked flawlessly on a previous Hassbian Install tough.

17

That error will probably only happen the first time you connect.

18

Hi all,
After a few hiccups (my own typo!), I managed to get hassio running on a Pi Zero. It is not as laggy as expected although the initial boot (with the CONFIG USB) took a good half an hour. After that it is responsive enough for my meager needs.
However, after a couple of days setting it up (only have time in the evening) it would not boot no matter how long I left it. Beforehand I had managed to install samba and connect to the config.yaml file via windows using notepad++.
I will get a new SD card soon and try again as @pizero seems to have it running without problems.
As for the setup, the CONFIG USB worked fine.
Please see this page:

https://www.home-assistant.io/getting-started/

and here is the correct file:

[connection]
id=hassos-network
uuid=72111c67-4a5d-4d5c-925e-f8ee26efb3c3
type=802-11-wireless

[802-11-wireless]
mode=infrastructure
ssid=MY_SSID
# Uncomment below if your SSID is not broadcasted
#hidden=true

[802-11-wireless-security]
auth-alg=open
key-mgmt=wpa-psk
psk=MY_WLAN_SECRET_KEY

[ipv4]
method=auto

[ipv6]
addr-gen-mode=stable-privacy
method=auto

I connected the HDMI to kind of get an idea of what it was doing behind the scenes but it is not necessary.

I am also beginning with hassio so am just sharing my knowledge so far.

Hope it is of use,

Good luck!