Thoughts on using ChromeBox and Chromebooks with Crostini linux for HomeAssistant?

Google moved the use of linux containers on their ChromeOS devices forward at the recent Google I/O. I am interested in thoughts and experiences using these devices as a platform for Home Assistant. The price point and often upgradability of hardware for ChromeOS seem relatively good. Are there limits to linux operation that might be problematic? Thx.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Crostini/

Why not just run linux and forget the whole chromeOS thing?

Yes, that seems equal to current state, with RPI’s and other hardware. My thought is that is these ChromeOS devices make it easy to install and update a HA maintained container under an OS that is fully supported by a consumer facing company (Google), this makes home automation easier and more secure for more people. Having Chrome and Google Assistant fully supported and updated facing the user with hopefully a easy GUI install of HA under that on a relative low cost box that plugs into a TV or a notebook with build in UPS (aka it’s battery) both seem to make home automation installation and long term operation easier.

How does it make it ‘easier’ and ‘more secure’ than on Linux?

1 Like

And how is a consumer facing screwing company better than an open source kernel and userland?

1 Like

I’m running HA on a chromebit, using crouton (because chromebit doesn’t support crostini), and the python virtual environment installation method. It’s been great so far! I’ll post my setup on these boards soon, there are many advantages to this method.

1 Like

Update : Google has added native support for Linux apps directly to Chrome OS, and this feature is available on many Chromebooks. You don’t need Crouton to run Linux software anymore.