Good morning,
This is my first post. I am completely new to the home integration/automation life. I read and watch videos and it all seems perhaps too deep for my knowledge base.
My wife and I have several Govee products, some Alexa stuff and a little LifX thrown in for good measure.
We do not need anything overly complex, but would like something nice.
Where to start, from hardware, WiFi, add ons and how to set it all up.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Welcome aboard!
If I were you I would pick something useful and easy to start. Maybe a presence sensor or two, and a light. Think about how a light coming on automatically when you walk around at night will help you.
Once you have that set up you might have some other ideas.
One of our early ones was automating our blinds. Up at sunrise and down at sunset. Takes all the hassle out of diving behind curtains and pulling on chains. Effortless now.
So many possibilities!
The best hardware to start on is the hardware you already have, be that an old pc or laptop lying in a cupboard or drawer doing nothing. The next would be a virtual machine on a PC or mac. With these you can run HA and try it out before buying a new bit of kit in the hope you want to use it after trying it out. Take regular backups and save them outside of HA, you can then easily move your setup to any new kit.
After that if you get on well with HA consider buying a dedicated bit of kit, be honest as to you real needs and wants as it can make a big difference. Ask do you want alarms and cameras, access from anywhere, voice control, media systems and just about anything else you can imagine.
As Arh says, you can start with a PC or laptop running HA in a virtual environment. I myself use Oracle VirtualBox for this and that way I can test things first before using them on my production HA. It’s also ideal for tinkering with HA before investing in hardware. But be careful, once you catch the bug, you’re on your way and before you know it, half your house is automated! I know all about it! 
I totally agree with the other comments, but I have to warn you about one big mistake. All people here started thinking about 4 or 5 devices, something simple, and almost all of us have finished with several dozens… 
Thank you for all the feed back. I will attempt to make a list of the items we currently have in our home.
Foyer - set of Govee light bars.
My office - Govee mini air purifier & Air quality monitor & Google Home
Kitchen - Govee pendant lights & LifX under counter light strips x 4 & 1 set of 6 Cync can lights & Alexa 15 inch
Living room - Curio cabinet 2 Govee Light Strips and 1 set of light bars & 1 Govee Air purifier & Alexa 5 inch
Stairs - 15 feet of LifX light strips
Wife Office - Govee Floor lamp
Master Bedroom - 1 Govee Air purifer & Alexa puck thing
Security sysem 4 outdoor camera and 1 indoor camera
2 shark robots
1 Nanoleaf triangles wall lights
Samsung Smart Refrigerator
I have 2 presnece sensors on the way
Home Assistant is a web server. This is why I recommend using a dedicated host computer. Many people start with a Raspberry Pi (4 or 5), or buy a Home Assistant Green with Home Assistant already installed. (I have never seen a green, but they seem to be popular)…
There must be a dozen different installation methods- largely dictated with your available host computer and how you want to use it. The easiest installation is called “Bare Metal” because there is no complication from using virtual machines or containers. You just flash the x-86 binary to your boot device, reboot and you are done. If you are using the Raspberry Pi, Home Assistant is an option in the Raspberry Pi Imager.
As said by others, an old laptop is a good start, but be aware that Home Assistant is expected to be running 24/7. Many older laptops aren’t designed for 24/7 operation. If you haven’t purchased a host computer, most mini-PC’s can be had on eBay (used) for less than the cost of a new Raspberry Pi and will outperform the Pi in every metric.
Regardless of which host computer you start with, migrating to a more robust platform later is pretty straightforward. Just backup/restore.
As you lurk about this forum you will see a pronounced aversion to any devices that require a cloud connection to work. (Some devices will require a cloud connection to set up, but not for normal operation). For example Belkin is ending at the end of January 2026, cloud support for Wemo smart plugs, switches, sensors, and appliances, rendering them “dumb” or completely nonfunctional. Neato Robotics (robot vacuums) parent company shut down the cloud servers three years earlier than promised. Devices become “dumb vacuums” with only basic button‑based operation.
WiFi - I learned the hard way that ISP-provided WiFi routers are trash. More specifically, they are the low bidders and only have enough memory to support two or three dozen WiFi clients. If your path down the rabbit hole includes a lot of WiFi devices, you may need to upgrade your router before long.
How to set it all up. One device at a time. Some or many of your devices will be “discovered” by Home Assistant making the integration simple. There are many hundreds of official integrations, and even more from the community. (It is open-source)
Again, one device at a time. If you run into problems, read this then come here for help.
Will all that Govee stuff look into the govee2mqtt add-on.