I am thinking about setting up a HA system in my house and am seriously considering using the Raspberry Pi as the platform for it. Based on my (admittedly limited) understanding of HA, it seems that there are two possible paths I can follow:
Install a Raspberry Pi-compatible Linux kernel and then install HA
What are the dis/advantages of both approaches? For my installation, I plan to access the Raspberry Pi via a hard wire connection and to have the devices access the Raspberry Pi via a wireless conenction. Does this factor make either approach more or less preferred?
On a raspberry Pi 3 you can also use a Hassbian install, or a docker install.
Hassio takes over your Pi and does not allow you to run any other programs, other than through its own applications. If your Pi will only ever be used for HA, then this is probably the way to go.
Hassbian essentially installs raspbian on the sd card along with an HA installation and some other useful programs in a standard way. However, it it still raspbian underneath, and you can do anything with your Pi that you would want to do afterwards.
The docker installation (make sure you use the Pi3 image, not the one described in the documentation) allows a quick installation on an existing Pi3, especially if you are familiar with docker.
Manual installation is for someone who is happy with the command line and wants to get to know the basics.
Personally, if I had a brand new Pi3, I would go the docker installation, but I installed hassbian on my Pi B+ over a year ago, and it hasnāt needed to be changed since.
I used Hass.io because its nice and simple. Another thing I wanted to use a RPi for was a Pi-Hole server which there is a Hass.io add-on for now anyway, so you can use it for other things in a way. For the low cost of a Pi I like the idea of having my hass sever separate to other things anyway so Iām not shutting down multiple services during a reboot.
(Hopefully) A simple question: This instruction page https://home-assistant.io/docs/installation/raspberry-pi/ says āThis installation of Home Assistant requires the Raspberry Pi to run Raspbian Lite.ā Why is the Lite version required? Shouldnāt this work just as well on the standard version?
not true. I think this is a problem that only you haveā¦ I have happily upgraded many times simply by clicking the upgrade button under āadvanced settingsā.
This just isnāt true. You are the only person complaining about this. Iāve done the 2 upgrades available to me since I went hassio with no issues like most everyone else.
I would suggest hass.io if you want something easy at the cost of functionality. If you enjoy learning and creating and want to use your Rpi3 to its fullest, I would go with just HA or HA in docker or virtual env. (I personally donāt see a lot of need for virtual environment either as I have never had a issue where I needed to start new.)
On my Rpi, I hold many python or php programs what I call upon during the day through crontabs or HA. An example would be getting the long and lat of a device tracker and finding the cross street names of that location and put those sreet names into a HA sensor.
Also, I run programs such as openvpn that serves my home network and is very well documented. I tried to get openvpn on my High Sierra Mac and it was a terrible pain that I gave up on.
Great, Iāll give it try when my current setup breaks, Iāve been using my current setup for 3 years with sosumi so I donāt want to mess with it. Thanks
This is absolutely true. FIVE reflashes with the latest version, next version comes out, cannot upgrade. It is a real problem and itās really annoying.
I just cobbled together a bunch of php scripts into one that do the following as a shell command in HA.
Find my iphones lat and long using sosumi
convert that into cross street names
post those using mqtt so HA has readable names
post the long and lat into a sql database with timestamp
This creates a push location finder for your iphone that you can automate. I request iphone location only when not in a zone and is based on time of day. I see no negative battery drain using this method but I donāt use it to notify when I arrive home.
I use google maps api to create a map with markers based on the sql database points so I can track on a map where devices go throughout the day. (fun but I donāt really use it very often)
I totally agree that thereās something broken regarding updates and thereās no log messages to help figure it out. I havenāt been able to upgrade for the last three updates!
I would try a different SD card. I know when I first started with Hass it wouldnāt boot after loading the image onto a particular SD card even after multiple attempts. I tried a different card and it worked straight away and has been great ever since