Newbie Q's

Energy
1

New to the forum so please be gentle. :grin: Probably some dumb questions which show my early ignorance.

I will soon be installing solar panels and Fox inverter and battery. I already have an electric car (Polestar). I have ordered a NUC to run HA and will be setting it up over the next few weeks. Could I ask the collective a few questions…

I would like to run the NUC under windows as I want to use it for other things. My understanding is that this means installing HA in a virtual machine. Am I correct? Is there a better way or any downsides to this?

I already have some smart devices. These include Tapo cameras and switches, Nest thermostat, Alexa devices, Sonos devices even Xsense fire alarms along with the aforementioned Fox solar and polestar car. Which of these is compatible with HA? I have seen mention on here of Tapo, and believe Fox is. Polestar? Alexa? Sonos?

As a more general question how can I tell if a certain device IS supported by HA? Is there any specific certification symbol?

The one thing I want to do early is to automate my hot water immersion heater. Currently this is dumb. Can anyone recommend a simple HA compatible switch for this?

As I said probably some dumb questions :roll_eyes: but I would appreciate any input. Thank you.

2

What does other things mean, do you want to use it with a screen for daily activites on Windows? If not you could virtualize it (proxmox for example) and use it headless for HA and other workloads.

3

For core integrations look it up here: Integrations

For third party integration support use google to search.

Yes there is one big downside to this. Windows is a horrible OS for a server. It will restart without warning.

Use a dedicated PC or SBC running Linux or HA OS for your HA server.

4

Thanks for your reply. It will be run headless but probably connected to a screen for occasional convenience. By ‘other things’ I mean as a potential music/video server (currently duties handled by a QNAP) and an occasional game server (Grand Prix Legends - a lightweight game from 1999). Neither of these are essential so if I have problems I can always install HA direct.

5

Then you should take a look at a hypervisor like Proxmox. Do not use Windows for this. No need for a screen then after initial install.

6

Thanks for your reply. HaHa Windows always seems to attract a lot of hate on any IT related forum. A friend on another forum never misses a chance for a dig at Windoze but every Linux update causes him to hold his breath until he gets everything working again. I am fully prepared to dedicate this NUC to HAOS if that proves necessary so I will keep an eye on your concerns. Thanks

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7

Thanks for all your help. The NUC arrived on Wednesday. I installed HA in a virtualbox machine. Took a couple of days to get most of my sensors integrated (how complicated do Google make Nest integration! Unbelievable!) but has now been running like a dream for several days. Created my first automation (turns office lights on when PC is running during hours of darkness). Starting to look at custom desktops now.

One thing I would really like to do is integrate my Polestar 2. I have started searching on here but if anyone can point me to the best method it would be appreciated.

Otherwise having great fun learning this. Thanks again.

8

Why Virtualbox?

Polestar GitHub - pypolestar/polestar_api: Polestar API - Home Assistant Component

9

Thanks for your reply. I used virtualbox as I have a small amount of experience with it. Why not virtualbox? Is there something wrong with it? Do you have a better recommendation? I am fairly new to this stuff…

Thanks for the polestar link. I found that myself earlier and have just finished reading the whole thread. I will try and implement it tomorrow :crossed_fingers:t2:.

10

Did you not read the posts earlier in the thread?

11

Thanks for your reply. Of course I have read all of this thread and countless others. I decided to stick with windows as it allows me to run other software now or in the future. I don’t have the hate for windows that some have as it has always served me well. When you are under a massive learning curve, as I am with HA, I don’t want to add the extra learning involved with another OS etc which I haven’t used in anger for years.

I chose virtualbox as I had used it before with success. It is my understanding that it is ‘like proxmox’ - it may not ultimately be as good but is working well so far. In the future if I run into limitations I may choose to rebuild from scratch using a dedicated HA NUC which will be easier with my increased HA knowledge.

I hope this doesn’t appear rude as I have been grateful for the help this community has offered but as we say in England ‘there is more than one way to skin a cat’ …

12

Nothing to with hate at all, I use Windows every day and I like it. It’s more that you’ve stated that you will be running it headless - sure it will work but you will “waste” a lot of resources on the windows part, and you’ll be at its mercy when patching is done. You will use RDP to the Windows host to manage the virtualbox vm.

Virtualbox and Proxmox differ quite a lot, where Virtualbox needs a client operating system (in your case Windows) to be installed in, Proxmox installs directly on your hardware. A lot less overhead. It’s also very easy to deploy other workloads (vms, containers) with proxmox.

13

Welcome! And not rude but also. Politely… I’m an ex Microsoft field engineer and a Microsoft cloud architect… And I agree with everything @fleskefjes said.

There is ZERO way I’m running a HA instance virtualized on windows desktop ever, full stop. Server maybe but the there’s licensing etc. Complete waste of horsepower.

If you need the desktop. Put HA on another box. If not Proxmox that thing. Or! Proxmox and make one of the VMs Windows… This is one of those sure you can… Stares at you like Willie Wonka. But I wouldn’t… :sunglasses:… Moments.

If headless do proxmox,

Future you will heartily thank yourself later.

On VB on win, You’re going to fight a bunch of ‘wierd’ issues (thoroughly research HA on VB on windows) you really shouldn have to fight and as a newbie it’ll be helpful ot know what’s ha and what’s your weird setup.

Personally I’d avoid the pain and go the easier path. (hint it’s NOT VB on Win Desktop)

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