I am currently using a rapsberry pi 3b for my HA installation. I have it installed in stretch as a venv. I find this setup useful because I have other stuff on the same raspberry, eg. file sharing, Motioneye.
Home Assistant is very light even for a raspberry. You can have a fully operational automation system with only 10% cpu usage and less than 30-40% RAM usage.
The problems start when I am operating motioneye. I only have 3 cameras (2 ip and one usb) and I have them streaming so I can see live image from my phone and also have them integrated into HA.
That takes my CPU at ~50% usage with a low resolution at 640*480 pixels.
No need to mention what happens at 720p…
Now, I intend to upgrade and put that rpi away.
My intentions are not only cctv but also face recognition (which takes loads of cpu) and probably object detection and I dont know what else yet (any suggestions?).
I realize that all the above need a powerful computer. What are your suggestions?
I cant think of how much cpu or ram would be enough to work on that load. Is a quad core enough? 16GB Ram?
Should I build a PC or get a small server? Maybe something more powerful?
Also, what OS would you recommend I should use? Ubuntu? Centos? anything else?
Has anyone got the experience for all these? I think my CCTV will probably consist of 8 IP cameras (1080p, but no problem to go for 720p if the cpu draw is too much)
Is there anything else I should consider before going for that upgrade?
I can’t recommend any hardware as I don’t know the power needs of what you will be running.
Something to keep in mind is a Pi pulls 3-10w from the wall. My 3b+ registers 3-5 from my POE switch.
A server is likely to draw a hundred watts or more sometimes even at idle. That is a significant difference in power draw and can add up over time especially if you are in an area with more pricey power delivery.
I have a i5 NUC. HA, and all the containers around HA. I also use it for my security camera NVR using Xeoma. Gor the moment 6 cameras but will be more. A traccar server. Around HA I run MariaDb, Portainer, Nodered, Nginx/Letsencrypt. I am sure I have forgot some
The NUC has 16 Gb memory. With all this the computer runs almost idle. Only when the NVR is fully occupied I manage 30% CPS load. A perfect solution for me
I run 16.04 still. It has a desktop but I never use it nowadays. I was thinkg of updating to 18.08 but it seems HA has more problems with that version and I have no use for it,
I have thrown out Windows from all our computers, run Linux Mint 19 on my main computer that also is a NUC
Thats True but I just noticed when I started that 18.04 had problems and decided to go with 16.04. Perhaps its time for 18.04 sometime but for now I have a rocksolid system that just runs. I have always lived after" dont change anything that works"
Around here we call that “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and I live by that with everything except software. It may run great, but then are those nasty little security holes that get patched with updates. So, I let the dust settle around new releases until at least the x.x.1 patch and then upgrade. I’m currently running Hass.io in Ubuntu 18.04.1
I was watching a comparison video the other day and considering all factors the guy recommended Ubuntu however one of the issues he had found with Ubuntu was a distribution upgrade THREE TIMES hosed his setup… that is a killer for me. I like stability.
I just did a generic linux install of hassio with docker and it’s amazing.on the github page you will see there is a NUC variant of that image but I didn’t see that before I was away… I just followed the webpage instructions which didn’t mention it. It all works great.
So a pretty powerful NUC can do the job for me. I am glad to hear that. I think…
I was also thinking about Ubuntu, but Debian sounds like to be a more stable and lightweight solution.
Now, something I didnt mention is the GPIO pins… I have my reed switches attached to my raspberry and I am running my alarm system there… So, every door/window sensor goes through my rpi. Any recommendations to that? It sounds like I will keep my rpi and have it running only for the alarm in parallel to the NUC, unless someone has to recommend something else.
I was originally intending on Ubuntu but Toast & Ludeeus talked me out of it on the basis of stability… I haven’t been sorry. I did a distribution upgrade to Debian 9.6 and it went without a hitch. I did reboot then but prior it was 80 days of uptime! Impressive.
Thats why I still use 16.04. Security wise it can only br reached via vpn and it does not run anything that need internet access. And if they could make it through the vpn it is not much of interest. Its hardly fort knox
