Switching to HA - Ideal setup PC or Pi5

Installation
1

I’ve been a previous VeraPlus user, moving back and going to redo the home automation and deciding on Home Assistant. I’m wondering the best way to run HA, would it be on one of the Pi5 they sell or can I use my old PC and run HA on that? I only plan to use it for Blue Iris. What would be the more powerful route to go?

Am I wasn’t resources using a PC as i don’t need that much power to run HA? Best to just go with Pi5? I guess that’s my main question and keep the extra PC for Blue Iris only.

THANKS!!

2

Don’t buy a Pi3 to run HA, it only has 1 GB ram and is underpowered. If you have one, you can try, but buying one is wasted money.

2 Likes
3

Agreed. I would future-proof if you go down the Pi route and go for the 5.

1 Like
4

So go with a Pi5 vs. an extra PC. Could I run HA on my extra PC and also other things (ie blue Iris)

5

Blue iris is Windows software

Min. Requirements

Pentium dual-core or equivalent 2GHz processor or better

2GB or more system RAM

Microsoft Windows 7 or newer OS (equivalent server OS as well)

One or more USB or Network IP cameras, or an analog capture card with DirectShow drivers

Recommended Specs

Intel core i7 with QuickSync for hardware decoding

8GB or more RAM

Microsoft Windows 10 64 bit

nVIDIA graphics adaptor for efficient screen display

7200+ RPM drives and/or SSD drive

1 Like
6

Is there any advantage / disadvantage going w Pi5 vs PC (my older desktop i5)

7

Power consumption? Seems more solid development.

8

Recognize that it is quite easy to upgrade your hardware in the future if/as you want. In my case, I started playing with HA on a Pi4, then a month or two later switched to an old laptop which ran fine for a couple years, and then recently changed to a Beelink Mini S12. With each upgrade I just took a backup on the old system and restored it on the new system just fine. So don’t stress this decision too much - just jump in!

9

I started with a PI, but I now have an old PC running Proxmox - allows me to create a homelab and run other things on it as well. PI works great, but even with an old PC its so much faster.