My NUC runs a Pentium J5005. 2 of the 4 ipcams are recorded onto the NUC and all 4 of them have got motion detection enabled. I haven’t done any facial recognition yet, but will for sure try it in the future.
I am running Gen8 i5 with 8gb ram, the processor is fine but I’m already up past 60% ram used so i will be get another 8gb ram stick. The cameras are running on another system as I was running HASSIO on a Pi when I set them up. I will be moving them to the same server in the new year. I am using a Pi camera attached to my Magic Mirror in the Bathroom for facial recognition so we can automate bathroom routines. At the front door I’m using HIK Vision camera both feed into MachineBox for facial recognition.
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I haave a gen 7 i5 with16 gb. I run the xeoma dvr/cctv server and 7 cameras on the same server as HA and all other home automation containers. Works flawless
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As I understand now, I will need nuc later on. For now Pi is just fine, but I have my eye on nuc. Will think more deep on what I will need on my main system and then choose needed nuc.
Thank you all for advices.
There are promising developments on the hassio NUC image front too:
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You can just install Docker on any system you want and then hassio inside docker.
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You overestimate my ability and underestimate my laziness.
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I doubt the former but the latter can be a problem
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I did have a read about docker and I understand the principal and advantages but just haven’t had the need to work out how to actually use the nuts and bolts of it. Learning new linux stuff can be frustrating. I am very much a newb.
Right now the payoff for learning docker isn’t there as the hassio/pi solution is working for me. Though the performance of a NUC is very tempting and my system keeps growing… So I’m hoping that by the time I need it a NUC image will be available. In the mean time I can concentrate on sorting out my ever evolving system and (new years resolution) make a more user friendly Lovelace front end.
Hi im also keen on moving my Hassbian over to my Nuc but I was unsure on what OS I would run or should I run HASSIO . my preference is Hassbian due to more flexibility and custom scripts I run so would I have to install ubuntu or the likes onto the Nuc then manual install home assistant I am not up to the ball games with Docker either so I don’t want to relearn a new system. Any help or recommendations on OS would be much appreciated thanks
I run ubuntu 16 as host and then HA in docker. Works perfect for me
Docker isn’t difficult at all. You guys make it sound like it’s a new operating system.
Don’t forget that everything on the pi is on the usb bus, so if ur moving data on the network the usb will suffer and the other way round.
U’d be surprised how quickly a 10/100 connection becomes a bottle neck.
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Tom my Linux skills are less then zero and I managed this conversion in less then an hour it really is an easy process and there are plenty of good guides out there.
If you are going to do it Ubuntu 18 was easy and didn’t require extra packages for Nuc specific drivers. Docker is a few lines of code and your done.
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Ok I think you’ve convinced me too have a go at Docker might as well move with the times lol.
Could you think of a good tutorial video on YouTube or something please post a link for me to see as the ones I’ve seen make sound complicated thanks very much .
I can only echo; I moved to docker fairly recently, and have never even remotely regretted.
@MyCool I have a so-and-so guide to how I did (installed Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS on a NUC-like computer, then docker, Samba, and a few other things, but mostly in docker containers) in the wiki of my home assistant repo. I also have my docker-compose.yaml, and a bunch of other stuff to get started (I keep my docker-compose, as well as all persistent folder for docker containers in /home/aephir/docker).
I’m running headless, but with Ubuntu it’s easy to install a GUI later, if you need. If anything is unclear from the wiki/repo description, feel free to ask, and I’ll be happy to send you my more thorough docs I have locally. Or take it as an occasion to update 
As for the whole NUC vs. RPi; I’ve only ever had a single corrupted SD during my… Hmmm… Something like 2-3 years with up to seven different RPi’s. I’ve only bought high quality cards, but they do eventually corrupt. So if you think the power of a Pi is enough, then consider booting from SSD drive (just put one in a case, and use as an external USB drive).
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I’m going to be stupidly analytical about your question. This is another perspective from a HomeLabs guy. In the world of HomeLabs, we try to mimic the kinds of resilience and stability found in the world of corporate IT.
You said you need it to be “solid stable” which can mean a number of things:
- Reduce chance of downtime
- Minimise time of downtime
A NUC will reduce the CHANCE of downtime, because the Pi’s SD card, as you rightly said, can die more quickly - depending on exactly what the Pi is doing.
But because it’s faster to swap an SD card, the NUC could potentially increase the TIME of downtime. Furthermore, if you have a family member or someone else non-technical, a spare SD card stored in a safe place, so you can quickly restore the Pi, could be even more useful.
So really it’s like comparing Burger King to McDonald’s. Sure, when you’re on that level, you can obsess about which one is better, but someone else is going to come along and say “I love burgers, but ughhhh, I wouldn’t touch those places, they are awful. Go to Hawksmoor if you want a proper burger”… and that guy is me.
So yes, comparing NUC and Pi - it’s a boring comparison really, okay one is clearly better than the other for a certain function, and you can make them into resilient systems with work.
But at the end of the day, you should take a step back and consider that the following items will blow these two things out of the water:
- dual-redundant disks (RAID 1) with a good hardware RAID card
- dual-redundant power supplies
- backups
Here’s what I did. I got on ebay and looked for cheap second hand servers. There’s an excellent forum on Facebook called Homelabs where people discuss this stuff. For a long time, the general view has been that you should get something like a Dell R710. These are old enough to be VERY cheap and young enough to be economical, quiet, and powerful. I bought a Dell R510 for £120 on Ebay, added some disks, waited for a long time to find a memory upgrade on ebay (128GB RAM for £60) and now I have an incredibly powerful server with RAID 1 and hot-swappable power supplies.
The reason the Pi is so wonderful is that it’s tiny, cheap, and does what most people need it to do.
Honestly I don’t think a NUC is a serious upgrade, but I do think a server would be. Even then, components in a server can die. (Rare, but notable possibility. With a Pi, who cares if the SD dies, and you can’t turn the lights on. Keep a torch in the house, and make sure you take regular copies of the SD card so that you can do a quick swap-out- and the lights will only be off for 5 minutes)
Anyway I’m sure some will disagree with this, it’s just my 2 pence worth - and hope it gives another perspective to the commonly held view that the Pi is the best thing for home automation.
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Now we are talking serious. But for the majority of HA users unreachable and unnecessary. Dont expect the normal user to understand raid fex.
If my nuc crashed it would take me ten minutes to swap ssd and put back the backup. Buy something used on ebay and you never know what you get.
But that is my opinion, everyone choose the path they want to go
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What do you class as a “user”? Most people who run an open source HA system on a Raspberry Pi are conversant with Linux, and could easily grasp RAID 1 which is a basic concept. So if that’s the user - I disagree.
As for being unreachable, a decent NUC can set you back as much as a really stonking second hand server, no problem…
I agree that you and I - or most people on this forum - can swap out an SSD in a NUC in 10 minutes, but back to your point about the “average user” - now ask your mum to do it… that’s why I drew a distinction between running a NUC and a Pi for automation. (I’m not saying either is better, I’m saying they are both pretty similar, give or take a bit of knowledge.)
I disagree. A lot.
MOST people running HA system on a pi do so using hassio, and have no clue how Linux works.
Except a lot of people are more concerned with overall power consumption, which a second hand server will not be very efficient.
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