- Just purchased a CanaKit Raspberry Pi 4 which comes with all the trimmings, bells, and whistles to get started.
- I’m right at the point where it instructs you to install NOOBS from the included SD card but after previewing the install instructions for getting HomeKit Assistant on the unit I’m getting that I don’t need to do that at all since HomeKit Assistant is running as a server
- Is this correct?
- while I’ve done years of development I’ve never touched the Pi and my understanding is the Pi is running from the SD card dynamically to some extent so ejecting it and inserting another SD card would not be a great idea.
- I suppose there is no harm in installing NOOBS first just to see that the new hardware works nominally and, based on the HomeKit Assistant install instructions, the inference is EVERYTHING the Pi needs to run is on the download installer.
- Like the name of the NOOBS OS I’m a newb to the Pi architecture and related OS’s that run on it.
Same question for me! Do i need to set up the Noob first and then install the HA or can i just go right to installing HA? I’m very new to this 
Thanks!!
If you want to run Home Assistant OS on the Pi (which is the recommended choice for beginners), then you can disregard the instructions regarding NOOBS and follow the instructions for installing HA OS.
If you want to run Raspberry Pi OS (or whatever other OS really), then you can install that via NOOBS and the best choice for installing Home Assistant from there would be to follow the instructions for Home Assistant Container. Again though, if you’re a beginner and aren’t familiar with (or don’t want to learn) Docker, then HA OS is a good choice.
Awesome, thank you!