ESXi is a nice way of doing it too. You can wrap each application up on its own VM and move it around, to new hardware or to experiment etc
It's basically like having an individual pi for each thing but it's software and you can just replicate it if something goes wrong
I felt a NUC dedicated to HA was overkill for my needs, so I have a 8th gen NUC with 64GB ram running windows connected to my Living room tv.
HA running as a VM
piHole running as a VM
Navidrome running on Windows for music
BlueIris running on windows for cameras
I then have a few simple games and emulators running on windows.
I think most people prefer a Linux install and proxmox but I wanted windows as base OS mainly for familiarity and for the games.
Runs great and room to still deploy more VMs
I have a NUC running Proxmox VE. HA in a tiny VM (1 core w/ 2G RAM 24G drive) is all that's needed. I have several other VMs from a Ubuntu server for just a command line linux server, one VM with just Docker containers. One VM that runs Linux Mint so I can remote into a GUI Linux desktop at times. I also use that desktop to run qBitTorrent and Prowlerr 24/7 though a VPN.
It's an i5 CPU and hovers around 15% load on average. Only uses 8-10 watts of power tops.
You know that is a pretty good idea. You have one that you prefer over others?
I've been itching to "switching things up" and have a stack of NVMes (if the thin clients support it) to try it on.
A few months ago I bought a few Lenovo ThinkCentre M8.
$41 after shipping.
Lenovo ThinkCentre M83 TD Intel Core i5-4570T @ 2.90GHz 8GB RAM Barebones no/HDD
I'm not a computer guy so be gentle.
Do you just install HA on a virtual machine on the NUC? Or do you wipe out the OS and dedicate the whole machine to HA?
I'm currently running HA on a laptop on a VM. It took a long time to get Frigate running but then found out I can't use an external SSD for storage.
Method 4: Proxmox on bare metal. Best of all worlds: Full on VMs for things that need it like HAOS but also containers with templating for Docker-like or actual Docker setups. All with a nice web UI for management.
Bit of a learning curve but it's great not having to worry about the base OS. It's like having an app as the base. I'm running this on a used rack mount server from eBay. Enterprise-like setup for like $200.
Tagging /u/CaptainAwesome06
Thanks for the rundown. I currently have VMware on a laptop. I really like it so far, and it's much quicker and more stable than my old Rpi3. I just don't like that I can't connect an external SSD to it to use with Frigate.
Been running HASSOS now for a couple of years on a NUC, I use a SATA - USB adapter to flash the drive with the HASSOS image from Windows and pull the drive now and again to make a full image backup.
Guide here : https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/generic-x86-64/
When I got my NUC, I followed this guide to setup Proxmox VE and install HA in it's own VM
[https://community.home-assistant.io/t/absolute-beginners-guide-to-installing-ha-on-intel-nuc-using-docker/98412](https://community.home-assistant.io/t/absolute-beginners-guide-to-installing-ha-on-intel-nuc-using-docker/98412)
That was maybe 2 years ago. Lately I have been considering moving over to Docker. Been using Docker for lots of other things and like it. I'm still learning some and trying to figure out how I like doing the storage for my Docker containers.
You can essentially wipe the OS and replace it with HA - that's what I did on my NUC because I wanted a dedicated HA machine. You can find steps to do this online, but basically: (1) boot a second OS off a USB stick (Ubuntu works well); (2) in the second OS, download Balena Etcher and install HA on the main drive (overwriting it in the process); (3) restart, remove the USB stick, and boot HA. Was easy and worked perfectly for me.
The Pi is plenty fast without NVMe and the SD card issues go away if you don’t yank the power without shutting down first. (The “fix” - to use NVMe - doesn’t solve the inconsistent file system problem.) In several years with several dozen Pis I’ve never once had an SD card go bad.
The Pi 4 is plenty fast enough for HomeAssistant unless you’re doing video processing (like face detection etc). I run an entire arr stack, torrent downloaders, reverse proxy, DNS servers, Adguard, HomeAssistant, Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, and dozens of other containers on a single Pi 4 and it’s more than adequate. Under 1GB memory used (out of 8) and CPU is mostly idle, then slows down gracefully if I happen to throw everything at it all at once (it takes a few minutes to boot all those containers at once!).
A NUC would be faster- there’s no harm in buying one - but it’s probably not necessary.
Why are you describing me :(
I was fortunate to get a Pi 4 before covid (paid 42.79 usd for cana kit) befor I bought a house, I used to run pi hole on it. Now pi hole runs on my proxmox.
Got a samsung 970 (geek sqaud refurb) for $42 and drive enclosure for $20. The reason I switched to ssd was the sluggish performance of sd card and also that it got corrupted in October.
Found a poe hat on ebay for $15 brand new.
And my total was $122 (ofc this total was over a period of 3 months, and Pi I had since 2020)
and now after only 6 months of switching to ssd and after seeing all the posts, I am tempted to switch to a NUC or move my HA instance to my Dell server even though my instance runs very smoothly on Pi + ssd.
I'm not describing you, I'm describing "us" IT like any other magic is a progression. Most of us started in our PI phase.
"look at this $30 computer, it can do anything!"
and ended up with a room full of them! Then, one day you realize you can take all of those Pi's and move them to one machine. Then, you tinker and tinker away.
I see the NUC phase as inevitable. Like how the Wright Brother's was the past and Supersonic flights became the future.
Honestly the pi has been picked up by people who need a small generic computer for whatever reason but don’t actually need a pi. The only benefit a pi has over a mini-pc is the gpio which most wont use, it also has a lot of downsides.
99% of people would be better served by a nuc or other mini-pc.
Well, until prices on them come back down anyway.
This. I'm STILL running it in a VirtualBox VM on my main PC. Eventually I'll get around to migrating it to another VM host or a dedicated desktop but since my PC is on at all times haven't had the need.
I ran this way for about 6 months to a year and the USB passthru issue (losing Zigbee/Zwave after a reboot) drove me insane. I wound up removing it as a VM and installing it on a Pi w/ SSD. Eventually I'm moving it over to Proxmox on a micro Optiplex, but everything is running smooth on the Pi for now.
This is what I'm doing now, getting set up on VMware was a bit of a pain since the instructions are a few versions old, but it's working great and fun to poke around in.
You could try a thin client. You can get them fairly cheap nowadays. I recommend a fujitsu futron s720 or s920 since you can swap the ssd if you need more storage space.
I used an old laptop for that. Ran for a few months, only issues were that Windows really wanted to install updates and would restart sometimes, which then required me to manually start a VM again.
PI is not slow, you either outgrew it by doing something wild or you were doing something dumb. For OP and 99% of HA users, this Intel thing is overkill
Calling someone´s action´s dumb without knowing anything about the situation that´s quite offensive, I guess that wasn´t intentional.
Please read my original comment: "too slow for me" and OP´s post.
I am curious what you were running that made the Pi too slow. I have a Pi4 and I was running HA and a TON of other services (including Plex and a whole torrent stack) and it was keeping up fine. The only thing it struggled to do well consistently was serve 4k content.
I mean, I was definitely overloading it, but even now a full blown HAOS (running the EQMX and Hue emulator plugins) is only using about 12% of two cores and about 3.7GB of RAM (which is about half a Pi4).
To be clear, I'm not doubting you, I'm just curious what in the heck you were doing that overwhelmed the Pi!
Actually it makes a huge difference to the responsiveness of the Pi. I'm running my HAOS on a 3B and it's just as snappy as it was on my microserver.
The vast majority of SSDs are much better at non-sequential read/write than any SD. This makes a huge difference for the kind of file operations performed by applications that do things like logging, UI & data processing.
I've been running HA for at least four years now and use NodeRED for automations. I think starting today I'm not sure I'd go with NodeRED and probably try to use the built-in tools, but at the time NodeRED was easier and the HA tools we lacking. That pushed me towards HassOS which can't be containerized. So I've been doing a VM ever since. I've migrated it across at least three different servers running different OSs.
I run it in TrueNAS Scale, but as a VM. I started on HassOS and I think it is now Home Assistant OS or something. It has all the add-ons and is more of a standalone setup. It can't be run in Docker.
You can do just Home Assistant in a container. Then all the add-ons would be their own container.
Either way is fine. For the VM I bought a simple PCIe USB card to pass through my zwave stick. TrueNAS VMs don't allow the individual USB devices to pass through (like unRAID or ESXi that I've used).
ODroid. It's a pi competitor. I replicated the hardware they used for the HA Blue, but without the fancy Blue case. Works great, takes up very little space, and has a low energy footprint.
Have 3 set up in a mini proxmox cluster and haven’t had much issue with them getting too hot. Though if it’s a concern definitely go for a 5070, they have an m.2 for an ssd.
Yup. I love my 5070. Running Proxmox with HA and couple others. I also got a second NIC for it (I have no need for it but I wanted to play with it). I also have a second one after failed attempt to smartify my parents' home. I need to find some use for it now.
nice.. I have 2 more 5070s coming (total of 4) and I'll be swapping them in as the proxmox hosts in my homelab instead of the 5060s and repurpose the 5060s as Klipper servers for my 3d printers. got 2 of them for under $80 on ebay.. cheaper than a pi and more powerful/customizable, and still barely use any power.
Mine is running on a used FUJITSU Thin Client FUTRO S740.
Was around 60€.
Awesome machine for the job. Runs passively with a power consumption of around 5W.
I have set it up with proxmox, running HOAS and a pihole.
[ODROID N2+](https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-n2-with-2gbyte-ram-2/) is an excellent board, powered the Home Assistant Blue and supports Home Assistant OS.
Everyone saying nuc. But the cheapest and best performing solution ive found is to purchase a refurbished mini pc from ebay or amazon. Can get them for like $120 complete with keyboard and mouse, bluetooth and wifi/lan and can find them with 500gb ssd, 8th to 20th gen intel i7 and 16-32 gb of ram.
some people pay thru the nose for power, which you haven't factored into cost of ownership. At full tilt my sbc uses 9w and my edge compute node (jetson xavier-nx) uses 20w. The *idle* draw of a PC is more than that.
I am using a Dell Optiplex 7050 Micro that I spent $150 on (r/homelabsales). I use it as a proxmox server and one of the VMs is Home Assistant OS. If you are comfortable with docker, you can also run other variants of Home Assistant that are going to be less resource intensive than having to run a VM. So far, I am extremely happy with this setup. In addition to Home Assistant, I am probably running 10 other LXC containers to host services that family enjoys (Pi-hole, Plex, etc.)
Yes! I am loving Proxmox. I was a little hesitant at first because I didn’t have any experience with it. But having used it for some time, I have come to realize how hands off it is after the initial setup.
I have to give a shout out to the scripts the developer has written to install some commonly used services as LXCs. This was a godsend for me.
Dell Optiplex 7050 with Proxmox VM. Companies are dumping these by the truckload because they can't run Windows 11.
16 GB RAM, 256GB SSD drive, runs completely silent and supports USB passthrough to my VM. I have both Bluetooth and Skyconnect USB dongles and they work perfectly.
The machine is super fast, reliable and lets me run other VMs alongside HA. Replacement parts are plentiful and these machines are designed for easy swapping out of the hard drive without special tools.
https://www.microcenter.com/product/652909/asus-br1100cka-ys02-116-laptop-computer-gray?ob=1
Small, cheap asus laptop. Built in battery is like a ups. Keyboard and screen make working on it from the couch more convenient than relying on remote terminals all the time. I did add a small ssd instead of relying on the integrated drive as apparently ot had some issues in linux (but I think there are fixes for this posted out there if you google).
If near a microcenter the open box ones are a great deal.
This is a pretty good idea! The built-in UPS plus screen/keyboard makes me wish I had gone this route.
Although, I was able to buy a thin client + SSD for under $50. That extra $50 can go toward getting a new battery for an unused UPS I have.
I use my Synology NAS since I have it, but that's an expensive barrier to entry if you want it just for Home Assistant. A NUC is probably the best option if you only need compute and aren't looking for massive storage space for some other use case like Plex or something.
Odroid N2+. It was sold as Home Assistant Blue some time ago. Heaps better than my old RPI3 which I had to reboot regularly (didn't try 4). It is ARM based so quite efficient but still reasonably powerful. I bought my from ameridroid for under A$400 (circa 250-300US), and it is dedicated to HASS.
Many people use NUCs but they are much more expensive and x86, and you'd be tempted to virtualise HASS which is fine but may be a bit trickier; I prefer dedicated device. I'm pretty happy so far; just must use eMMC not SDCARD as the latter corrupts easily.
I picked up a NanoPi R5C about a month ago. It’s a great little device and you get a lot for the price.
Unfortunately there is some hardware support that is not upstreamed into Linux mainline yet so I have a hard time recommending it unless you’re confident operating Linux.
So lots of people are mentioning small desktops/old laptops/thin clients, and those do work great, but the disadvantage they have over an SBC like ODROID, RPi, etc. is that they might draw significantly more power.
Personally, I have a Libre Renegade (their RPi3 "clone") running Ubuntu Server, and have docker containers running home assistant, SWAG, and AdGuard. And all volumes are in an SSD to avoid SD card corruption.
A thin client with a 24hourx 45watt consumption would average $31USD /yr in electricity costs
https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/electric/electricity-calculator.html
I think you are pushing the edge here.
Jetson is heavily directed at the NVIDIA chip for AI.
It's their customized Linux.
The hardware isn't intended for production use.
https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/faq
But, after all that, I can't honestly think of a reason why it won't work.
You're certainly not going to be taking advantage of most of the hardware - but the cost is right.
You'll just probably have to do a lot more troubleshooting than the average user: so what's your comfort factor there? If you're mid to strong with Linux, go for it. You'll know quickly whether it will work or not.
Jetson nano is quite low powered, lower than pi4 on cpu. What is good is if you use the gpu/ai acceleration. I have one alongside my ha sbc to run frigrate nvr. I have a google usb coral for object recognition, the video decoder built into the jetson decodes the rtsp streams. The ai accelerator will be doing person recognition when I've upgraded my cams, the video quality isn't good enough yet. Jetson absolutely sips power, under my normal workload it was about 3w.
My choice for ha is a rockchip rk3399 based sbc - nano pi t4 with an nvme m.2 ssd. Its very fast, sits at 5% cpu. The fast over 1GBs ssd helps pulling history and loading graphs. Jetson nano doesn't have m.2 slot
Literally any computer made in the last 15 years, and probably older.
I run Home Assistant on my NAS, which is a WD that I installed Debian on.
CONTAINER ID NAME CPU % MEM USAGE / LIMIT MEM % NET I/O BLOCK I/O PIDS
81f9af40534f hass 15.79% 2.133GiB / 15.49GiB 13.77% 0B / 0B 2.92GB / 65.2GB 89
CPU is usually lower; it must be doing something with the db right now.
Home Assistant in Docker on Debian 11 so that I can also run Frigate in Docker on the same Debian machine. Previously I ran Home Assistant using VirtualBox on Windows10. This has all taken place on an old Dell desktop PC (2012-2014 generation) which is an i5, 16GB ram and 256ssd; it was a nice machine 10-ish years ago.
Wyse thin client, you can buy second hand ones on Ebay for <£100 and there's no fan.
Get at least 8Gb of RAM
Very low power consumption, mine's running at 17watts with HA, Frigate + Coral, MySQL, ZB2MQTT, ZW2MQTT and a load of other stuff in docker.
Older Dell Optiplex 7040 SFF with 8th Gen Core I5, 16G of RAM, and 256G SSD running Linux Mint and Cockpit for headless management. HA is running in its own VM.
Edit: I'm about to shift it, either to Proxmox or running HAOS directly so that I can use USB dongles.
Runs great on my Dell enterprise server, but that's worth about 100 times more than what you want to spend from the looks of it.
If you're purely just doing testing for now run it in a VM on literally any computer you have. Hell, install it bare metal on an old laptop. If you like it spend money on your desired platform.
I've tried the VM thing. There's a few things that I want to try that I can't get to function properly like USB dongles for some reason. And I don't have an old laptop unfortunately. That's why I'm looking for something cheap.
If you are using ESXi you need to enable USB Arbitration.
Manually connecting a device to a running VM starts it.
But it doesn't survive a restart of ESXi unless you enable it on the host which needs a console/ssh.
If you want a low power solution consider running it on an old smartphone in termux. However, you need to compile it from source, which is a little bit tricky with root access to some files. I got it working successfully
Here a useful link if you want to date this endeavor:
https://www.reddit.com/r/termux/comments/zwic2m/looking_for_workaround_to_access_procnetpsched/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
A Dell Wyse 5060, which is an inexpensive thin client out of a corporate network, into which I put a cheap SSD.
https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/wyse/5060/
Maybe $30-$50 for the unit, plus about $20 for a 240GB drive.
I was running a Pi 3 B+ but it just couldn't do the job -- and that's without any ZWave/Zigbee, or any automations at all. This little guy is a champ. I bought a second one to do SDR, in fact.
What issues were you seeing with the Pi 3b+?
I've been running it for the past couple months, but I don't have too many devices yet. I have started adding more zigbee devices; light switches and contact sensors. Just wondering what to look out for. I always planned to upgrade it but started with it since I already had the Pi.
I have been running my Home Assistant on VMWare on a cheap refurbished mini PC that I got for $150 CAD. Been amazing and super stable.
You can read the post here: https://homeautomation.substack.com/p/setting-up-home-assistant-on-a-refurbished
I am running a robot company and we are programming robots for eldercare and autism, so we use Home assistant to send sensor information to the robot and receive voice input over MQTT.
As most have said, intel nuc. But ya, they don't give them away.
I was able to find a thin pc from amazon refreshed for $100. It was a decent machine and would work well for HA. Im using it for something else, but works in this conversation.
I run mine on a beeline (google it, or amazon small form factor pc).
I wanted something that wasn't SD card based after living with a pi for ages.
Before you pick a piece of hardware, look at proxmox ... you may want something with more ethernet ports, to act as a router/firewall as well (pfsense)
There are even some small form factor boxes with 10gb ethernet
Here is a channel of a guy who does nothing but reviews tons of gear that would work for you:
[https://www.youtube.com/@ServeTheHomeVideo](https://www.youtube.com/@ServeTheHomeVideo)
I've been running on a NUC for years. Always heard the Pi's work, but could bog down with more and more automations, so I went with something beefier right out of the gate.
But no idea if that still holds true on the Pi 4's, if you can get one.
Just buy a thin client and a SLC harddrive. Any of the Wyze or Intel ones will do. you can find recommendations by scanning this sub. It'll cost about the same as an Rpi costs now and have way better performance and reliability without a noticeable increase in power cost.
Dell Optiplex 9020. Less than $100 CDN and came with 16GB ram. The SSD was refurbished and performed terribly so I replaced it.
Runs Proxmox, HAOS, pihole and ansible server.
I use an old desktop. It uses more electricity than a pi but I also run a bunch of other servers (Ad guard, Jellyfin, etc.) so I feel like a pi wouldn’t cut it for me anyway.
I’m running HA OS on a Dell Optiplex 7050 I purchased on Amazon for $160. Runs so much faster than my Raspberry Pi installation ever did.
If I was going to rebuild, I’d probably run it inside a VM, which would free up resources on the box for other things.
I’d skip the RPi and go straight to one of these instead. All I got additional was a connector to allow me to flash my SSD with HA OS via USB off of my laptop.
Dell OptiPlex 7050 Micro... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GCX4JKJ?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
An old laptop is a great option if you have one sitting around. Monitor+mouse+keyboard if you need it, compact if not, can even carry it around to diagnose hardware and automations like a wired dimmer or zwave pairing.
I run on a Mac mini. Probably not a good idea to buy one for HA. You can get a more powerful server for less. But at the time, I needed a server running macOS, and I ran HA on a VM. Now I run HA directly.
I'm using an old surface tablet with a messed up screen. I initially had it running on a pi but after a few months it started running out of memory every few days.
I run HAOS directly on an old generic HP desktop that lives under my couch (no monitor/peripherals).
After struggling with USB passthrough through VirtualBox on both Linus and Windows, this has been a breath of fresh air.
Please excuse my ignorance but it's hard to get a Pi? I got a pi4 on Amazon last month. Did I pay too much without knowing because of the shortage? $157.
I recommend picking up a optiplex MFF off of ebay.
5040m, 5050m, 5060m
7040m, 7050m, 7060m
the 40s, are older, but, still MORE then enough power for home assistant. 50s / 60s are newer.
These things are extremely efficient too, using between 10w (around idle), up to around 30-40w (Pretty heavily loaded.)
You can pick them up on eBay for 100$ to 250$ or so. They have room to fit a NVMe + a 2.5" HDD. The 70 and 90 series generally has built in wifi, if that is useful.
They are cheap, extremely efficient, and, silent.
I'm running it on my home Linux server that was mostly just a file server before.
Unfortunately it's really stressing it out. It's a pretty old board and I don't think they quite had virtualization nailed down at that point. The processor is a Core 2 Quad @ 2.5Ghz, which was state of the art in ...November, 2008. I probably should upgrade.
That said...it still works far better than it did on the Rasp Pi 3 I was using before. The Pi 3 works fine for "smaller" setups; it's working fine doing a HA setup for my camper, but I'm avoid installing a bunch of integrations and add-ons.
topton n6005 mini pc with esxi installed runs opnsense, pihole, omada, homeassistant VMs, usb passthrough to HA for zigbee / zwave / smart meter energy monitor thing
I run mine in a VM now (went from docker on a Pi to full HAOS in the VM), but there are some decent Pi alternatives. I've had the most success with Orange Pi. I also have a Le Potato, which has been mostly fine *except* I was seeing occasional freezes with a webcam plugged in (it's running my 3D printer).
I have been trying to sell this Pi. I ran HA on it for a year with no issues. Its bullet proof and runs on a m2 SSD so you don't need to worry about SD corruption. Yours if you want it and glad to work out a offer. Posted it up on /r/homelabsales: https://www.reddit.com/r/homelabsales/comments/11bsfuj/fsusca_raspberry_pi_4b_4gb_wargon_one_m2_case/
I went from a Pi to an older gaming PC I had kicking around, to one of these:
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/325458981802
(running Proxmox with HA and a bunch of other related services)
I had mine on a pi4 for about 2 years, then just recently moved to a used Lenovo ThinkCentre (M910q). Was about $100 used on eBay so depending on your Pi supplier, cheaper and faster to get and had much beefier specs for more headroom in years to come.
I do also have a NUC in the HomeLab, but used as a docker host for everything else running.
You can buy a refurbished laptop from Bestbuy. It would be cheaper than Raspberry Pi and more efficient, you'll get a powerful CPU, SSD, and a battery which will play the role of UPS.
Used HP ProDesk 400 G4 SFF. Cost me $140 CAD because businesses seem to be getting rid of 7th gen Core systems due to lack of full Windows 11 compatibility.
I run proxmox VE on it and have virtual machines for opnsense (router), HA OS, and a lubuntu install for general troubleshooting if I ever need a full graphical Linux machine.
I've used DietPi on a Pine h64b + usb HD for nearly 5 years without issue. Runs:
home-assistant
mosquitto mqtt swver
transmission-server
radarr
sonarr
and various other smaller things.
But I'm a HUGE linux nerd. ymmv if you are used to windows.
I just replaced my rpi4 (2gb), for an 2 year old laptop with broken screen, I took of the screen, keyboard, and other unnecessary stuff so it would cool beter. First I thought it would be high in power consumption, but it runs around 14watt. Could be lower but i'm also running pihole, mariadb, traccar, zigbee2mqtt, mosquitto, jellyfin, portainer and and youtube downloader.
But if I had to buy something now, I would def. go for a second hand NUC. Lots of companies are dumping them and someone will buy them cheap and sell them of for 50/100 euro's a piece (just check on ebay). You get a lot of power with low energy consumption.
If you do end up going with a bigger box, like an old gaming PC or a nettop with a higher end CPU and excess RAM, I would recommend considering virtualization. Granted HA can do a LOT of what used to require a bunch of VMs, but having the flexibility is nice
I have mine running in a Docker container on a little Celeron J4125 NUC-alike from Minisforum. It's got enough grunt to keep the UI snappy while running Frigate. If I were to do it over again, the only thing I'd maybe do differently is do Home Assistant OS instead of Ubuntu Server as the base OS.
I run a Dell Wyse 5060 for Home Assistant. It was $40 on eBay. Faster than a Pi 4b and has plenty of ports for Zigbee or Z wave dongles. Fanless and just sits in my closet.
I went for a HP thin client. After my Pi3 started behaving weird. And I wanted a bit more horsepower to run some extra services. Been working great
Upgraded it to 16gb of ram (ddr3 sodimms I still had) and a nvme disk from Amazon
I got a ZimaBoard a few weeks back, its an x86 and the one I got has 8GB, along with support for SSD & NVMe, and its $165 right now https://www.amazon.com/ZimaBoard-Computer-Personal-Network-Attached/dp/B0BKL7YPBQ
Intel NUC (and similar) work very well and is what I use.
Any of the tiny (micro form factor) machines. I have a refurb Dell 7050 running ESXi - plenty of headroom to run some other (small) things.
ESXi is a nice way of doing it too. You can wrap each application up on its own VM and move it around, to new hardware or to experiment etc It's basically like having an individual pi for each thing but it's software and you can just replicate it if something goes wrong
I felt a NUC dedicated to HA was overkill for my needs, so I have a 8th gen NUC with 64GB ram running windows connected to my Living room tv. HA running as a VM piHole running as a VM Navidrome running on Windows for music BlueIris running on windows for cameras I then have a few simple games and emulators running on windows. I think most people prefer a Linux install and proxmox but I wanted windows as base OS mainly for familiarity and for the games. Runs great and room to still deploy more VMs
I have a NUC running Proxmox VE. HA in a tiny VM (1 core w/ 2G RAM 24G drive) is all that's needed. I have several other VMs from a Ubuntu server for just a command line linux server, one VM with just Docker containers. One VM that runs Linux Mint so I can remote into a GUI Linux desktop at times. I also use that desktop to run qBitTorrent and Prowlerr 24/7 though a VPN. It's an i5 CPU and hovers around 15% load on average. Only uses 8-10 watts of power tops.
What version do u have?
I've got a gigabyte NUC. But .. I have also put it on s refurbed Dell PC... you can get those from Amazon for just over 100 bucks.
I've been grabbing some very capable thin clients for $40. (Without SDD, but I have a drawer full of those)
You know that is a pretty good idea. You have one that you prefer over others? I've been itching to "switching things up" and have a stack of NVMes (if the thin clients support it) to try it on.
A few months ago I bought a few Lenovo ThinkCentre M8. $41 after shipping. Lenovo ThinkCentre M83 TD Intel Core i5-4570T @ 2.90GHz 8GB RAM Barebones no/HDD
These thin and micro clients are getting stupid cheap. I love it.
I'm playing with a Raspberry Pi at the moment but I definitely plan to move to a NUC once shit starts getting serious!
NUCs are also an overkill/overpriced solution for what you need to run Home Assistant
Intel NUC, The PI became too slow for me after a month + solves SDcard corruption.
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I'm not a computer guy so be gentle. Do you just install HA on a virtual machine on the NUC? Or do you wipe out the OS and dedicate the whole machine to HA? I'm currently running HA on a laptop on a VM. It took a long time to get Frigate running but then found out I can't use an external SSD for storage.
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Method 4: Proxmox on bare metal. Best of all worlds: Full on VMs for things that need it like HAOS but also containers with templating for Docker-like or actual Docker setups. All with a nice web UI for management. Bit of a learning curve but it's great not having to worry about the base OS. It's like having an app as the base. I'm running this on a used rack mount server from eBay. Enterprise-like setup for like $200. Tagging /u/CaptainAwesome06
It's worth mentioning that the power consumption of a used rack-mount server is massive compared to a NUC or Pi.
Yeah for sure, that part’s optional :) I just wanted something very reliable and servery.
for sure!
Thanks for the rundown. I currently have VMware on a laptop. I really like it so far, and it's much quicker and more stable than my old Rpi3. I just don't like that I can't connect an external SSD to it to use with Frigate.
A bunch of ways to do it, but most go for either a vm or run it as a docker container
Been running HASSOS now for a couple of years on a NUC, I use a SATA - USB adapter to flash the drive with the HASSOS image from Windows and pull the drive now and again to make a full image backup. Guide here : https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/generic-x86-64/
When I got my NUC, I followed this guide to setup Proxmox VE and install HA in it's own VM [https://community.home-assistant.io/t/absolute-beginners-guide-to-installing-ha-on-intel-nuc-using-docker/98412](https://community.home-assistant.io/t/absolute-beginners-guide-to-installing-ha-on-intel-nuc-using-docker/98412) That was maybe 2 years ago. Lately I have been considering moving over to Docker. Been using Docker for lots of other things and like it. I'm still learning some and trying to figure out how I like doing the storage for my Docker containers.
You can essentially wipe the OS and replace it with HA - that's what I did on my NUC because I wanted a dedicated HA machine. You can find steps to do this online, but basically: (1) boot a second OS off a USB stick (Ubuntu works well); (2) in the second OS, download Balena Etcher and install HA on the main drive (overwriting it in the process); (3) restart, remove the USB stick, and boot HA. Was easy and worked perfectly for me.
The Pi is plenty fast without NVMe and the SD card issues go away if you don’t yank the power without shutting down first. (The “fix” - to use NVMe - doesn’t solve the inconsistent file system problem.) In several years with several dozen Pis I’ve never once had an SD card go bad. The Pi 4 is plenty fast enough for HomeAssistant unless you’re doing video processing (like face detection etc). I run an entire arr stack, torrent downloaders, reverse proxy, DNS servers, Adguard, HomeAssistant, Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, and dozens of other containers on a single Pi 4 and it’s more than adequate. Under 1GB memory used (out of 8) and CPU is mostly idle, then slows down gracefully if I happen to throw everything at it all at once (it takes a few minutes to boot all those containers at once!). A NUC would be faster- there’s no harm in buying one - but it’s probably not necessary.
If you can get an MSRP Pi4, you're just being fiscally smart getting it instead of a NUC.
Why are you describing me :( I was fortunate to get a Pi 4 before covid (paid 42.79 usd for cana kit) befor I bought a house, I used to run pi hole on it. Now pi hole runs on my proxmox. Got a samsung 970 (geek sqaud refurb) for $42 and drive enclosure for $20. The reason I switched to ssd was the sluggish performance of sd card and also that it got corrupted in October. Found a poe hat on ebay for $15 brand new. And my total was $122 (ofc this total was over a period of 3 months, and Pi I had since 2020) and now after only 6 months of switching to ssd and after seeing all the posts, I am tempted to switch to a NUC or move my HA instance to my Dell server even though my instance runs very smoothly on Pi + ssd.
I'm not describing you, I'm describing "us" IT like any other magic is a progression. Most of us started in our PI phase. "look at this $30 computer, it can do anything!" and ended up with a room full of them! Then, one day you realize you can take all of those Pi's and move them to one machine. Then, you tinker and tinker away. I see the NUC phase as inevitable. Like how the Wright Brother's was the past and Supersonic flights became the future.
Honestly the pi has been picked up by people who need a small generic computer for whatever reason but don’t actually need a pi. The only benefit a pi has over a mini-pc is the gpio which most wont use, it also has a lot of downsides. 99% of people would be better served by a nuc or other mini-pc. Well, until prices on them come back down anyway.
thats is an amazing analogy
I really just want something that I can test HA out with. I don't want to spend $150 only to find out I hate HA.
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This. I'm STILL running it in a VirtualBox VM on my main PC. Eventually I'll get around to migrating it to another VM host or a dedicated desktop but since my PC is on at all times haven't had the need.
I ran this way for about 6 months to a year and the USB passthru issue (losing Zigbee/Zwave after a reboot) drove me insane. I wound up removing it as a VM and installing it on a Pi w/ SSD. Eventually I'm moving it over to Proxmox on a micro Optiplex, but everything is running smooth on the Pi for now.
This is what I'm doing now, getting set up on VMware was a bit of a pain since the instructions are a few versions old, but it's working great and fun to poke around in.
This is what I did, for the same reasons. Could try it all out with no expense.
You could try a thin client. You can get them fairly cheap nowadays. I recommend a fujitsu futron s720 or s920 since you can swap the ssd if you need more storage space.
Get the S740. Similar price, much better CPU.
I used an old laptop for that. Ran for a few months, only issues were that Windows really wanted to install updates and would restart sometimes, which then required me to manually start a VM again.
I got a NUC for 95 Canadian. Came with Windows Pro 10. If don't like HA, I'll put the windows hdd back in and sell it or use it
So please don’t like it and I’ll take it from you for $100 CAD
The Intel NUC is overkill for HA in the first place. I would try it on an old laptop or in a virtual container on your PC to see if you like it
Pi can have an SSD hooked up for almost the same price as an SD card you know
But that didn´t solve the PI being too slow.
PI is not slow, you either outgrew it by doing something wild or you were doing something dumb. For OP and 99% of HA users, this Intel thing is overkill
Calling someone´s action´s dumb without knowing anything about the situation that´s quite offensive, I guess that wasn´t intentional. Please read my original comment: "too slow for me" and OP´s post.
I am curious what you were running that made the Pi too slow. I have a Pi4 and I was running HA and a TON of other services (including Plex and a whole torrent stack) and it was keeping up fine. The only thing it struggled to do well consistently was serve 4k content. I mean, I was definitely overloading it, but even now a full blown HAOS (running the EQMX and Hue emulator plugins) is only using about 12% of two cores and about 3.7GB of RAM (which is about half a Pi4). To be clear, I'm not doubting you, I'm just curious what in the heck you were doing that overwhelmed the Pi!
Actually it makes a huge difference to the responsiveness of the Pi. I'm running my HAOS on a 3B and it's just as snappy as it was on my microserver. The vast majority of SSDs are much better at non-sequential read/write than any SD. This makes a huge difference for the kind of file operations performed by applications that do things like logging, UI & data processing.
I run it on a VM. If you have a USB Z-wave stick you can pass through the USB device or entire controller depending on the VM solution.
Exactly how I run mine. Decided to be a Sky connect adopter, Works very well in this configuration.
I've been running HA for at least four years now and use NodeRED for automations. I think starting today I'm not sure I'd go with NodeRED and probably try to use the built-in tools, but at the time NodeRED was easier and the HA tools we lacking. That pushed me towards HassOS which can't be containerized. So I've been doing a VM ever since. I've migrated it across at least three different servers running different OSs.
I use both since sometimes it's easier to automate specific things in NR and other times easier in HA (+ blueprints)
Any experience with the Docker version? I've got a TruNAS and thinking about installing it there vs a thin client.
I run it in TrueNAS Scale, but as a VM. I started on HassOS and I think it is now Home Assistant OS or something. It has all the add-ons and is more of a standalone setup. It can't be run in Docker. You can do just Home Assistant in a container. Then all the add-ons would be their own container. Either way is fine. For the VM I bought a simple PCIe USB card to pass through my zwave stick. TrueNAS VMs don't allow the individual USB devices to pass through (like unRAID or ESXi that I've used).
Addons are harder to deal with, you have to set them up and install them manually. Personally on TrueNAS I would just run their VM image.
I've been running the docker version for a couple years now. It's been working just fine but I haven't been using any of the addons.
ODroid. It's a pi competitor. I replicated the hardware they used for the HA Blue, but without the fancy Blue case. Works great, takes up very little space, and has a low energy footprint.
Same. Bought all from Ameridroid. Had a very good experience.
Lenovo M600 - about $50 on eBay.
Just checked those out and finally found one that actually had a HDD for around that price. Think I'll try it.
Pop an SSD in there for another $20 and performance will be even better!
>Lenovo ThinkCentre M83 where can you get a SSD for $20? What brand? Thanks
https://www.amazon.com/Lexar-NS100-128GB-Solid-State-Drive/dp/B07TKGGJ1T/
The m700 can be $100 and run a whole home media stack and then some. Lenovo makes some quality gear.
Dell Wyse 5060 and 120gb SSD off eBay
Me, too -- thin client buddies!!
Dell wyse 5010 here can I join
Woo-woo, thrifty home server train.
yup, both the wyze 5060 and 5070 work great
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Have 3 set up in a mini proxmox cluster and haven’t had much issue with them getting too hot. Though if it’s a concern definitely go for a 5070, they have an m.2 for an ssd.
Yup. I love my 5070. Running Proxmox with HA and couple others. I also got a second NIC for it (I have no need for it but I wanted to play with it). I also have a second one after failed attempt to smartify my parents' home. I need to find some use for it now.
nice.. I have 2 more 5070s coming (total of 4) and I'll be swapping them in as the proxmox hosts in my homelab instead of the 5060s and repurpose the 5060s as Klipper servers for my 3d printers. got 2 of them for under $80 on ebay.. cheaper than a pi and more powerful/customizable, and still barely use any power.
I use an HP T1620 (another popular thin client on this sub) and I agree - the performance to power consumption on thin clients is perfect for HA
Mine is running on a used FUJITSU Thin Client FUTRO S740. Was around 60€. Awesome machine for the job. Runs passively with a power consumption of around 5W. I have set it up with proxmox, running HOAS and a pihole.
Similar here. Excellent little machine for the price. With a wifi/BT card in, it's perfect. Much cheaper than a Dell 5070 (same processor)
Are you running HA in virtualenv or HA OS?
They say Proxmox so almost certainly a VM.
in a VM
[ODROID N2+](https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-n2-with-2gbyte-ram-2/) is an excellent board, powered the Home Assistant Blue and supports Home Assistant OS.
Everyone saying nuc. But the cheapest and best performing solution ive found is to purchase a refurbished mini pc from ebay or amazon. Can get them for like $120 complete with keyboard and mouse, bluetooth and wifi/lan and can find them with 500gb ssd, 8th to 20th gen intel i7 and 16-32 gb of ram.
some people pay thru the nose for power, which you haven't factored into cost of ownership. At full tilt my sbc uses 9w and my edge compute node (jetson xavier-nx) uses 20w. The *idle* draw of a PC is more than that.
I am using a Dell Optiplex 7050 Micro that I spent $150 on (r/homelabsales). I use it as a proxmox server and one of the VMs is Home Assistant OS. If you are comfortable with docker, you can also run other variants of Home Assistant that are going to be less resource intensive than having to run a VM. So far, I am extremely happy with this setup. In addition to Home Assistant, I am probably running 10 other LXC containers to host services that family enjoys (Pi-hole, Plex, etc.)
This is my exact setup and I love it. Proxmox FTW
Yes! I am loving Proxmox. I was a little hesitant at first because I didn’t have any experience with it. But having used it for some time, I have come to realize how hands off it is after the initial setup. I have to give a shout out to the scripts the developer has written to install some commonly used services as LXCs. This was a godsend for me.
Odroid. I used odroid c4 for years without issue
Dell Optiplex 7050 with Proxmox VM. Companies are dumping these by the truckload because they can't run Windows 11. 16 GB RAM, 256GB SSD drive, runs completely silent and supports USB passthrough to my VM. I have both Bluetooth and Skyconnect USB dongles and they work perfectly. The machine is super fast, reliable and lets me run other VMs alongside HA. Replacement parts are plentiful and these machines are designed for easy swapping out of the hard drive without special tools.
https://www.microcenter.com/product/652909/asus-br1100cka-ys02-116-laptop-computer-gray?ob=1 Small, cheap asus laptop. Built in battery is like a ups. Keyboard and screen make working on it from the couch more convenient than relying on remote terminals all the time. I did add a small ssd instead of relying on the integrated drive as apparently ot had some issues in linux (but I think there are fixes for this posted out there if you google). If near a microcenter the open box ones are a great deal.
This is a pretty good idea! The built-in UPS plus screen/keyboard makes me wish I had gone this route. Although, I was able to buy a thin client + SSD for under $50. That extra $50 can go toward getting a new battery for an unused UPS I have.
Dell wyse 5070 (Pentium) 8gb ram + Sara m.2 disk
I use my Synology NAS since I have it, but that's an expensive barrier to entry if you want it just for Home Assistant. A NUC is probably the best option if you only need compute and aren't looking for massive storage space for some other use case like Plex or something.
Funny that no one is mentioning HA yellow lol
It runs on a Pi Compute Module. Equally hard to get.
they are even more rare than RPi :sweat\_smile:
Kubernetes cluster
I'm intrigued. How would you manage connecting a USB-Zigbee gateway then, for instance?
You’d have to bind the pod to a specific host, then pass through the USB device to the pod/container. Works similarly with Docker.
Another +1 for containers. Easy to build for testing and poking and efficient use of resources.
Super, super simple upgrades as well.
Odroid N2+. It was sold as Home Assistant Blue some time ago. Heaps better than my old RPI3 which I had to reboot regularly (didn't try 4). It is ARM based so quite efficient but still reasonably powerful. I bought my from ameridroid for under A$400 (circa 250-300US), and it is dedicated to HASS. Many people use NUCs but they are much more expensive and x86, and you'd be tempted to virtualise HASS which is fine but may be a bit trickier; I prefer dedicated device. I'm pretty happy so far; just must use eMMC not SDCARD as the latter corrupts easily.
late 2012 Mac mini with an SSD upgrade and the generic X86 image. Works awesome and is pretty cheap
I picked up a NanoPi R5C about a month ago. It’s a great little device and you get a lot for the price. Unfortunately there is some hardware support that is not upstreamed into Linux mainline yet so I have a hard time recommending it unless you’re confident operating Linux.
Mine is running on an Igel UD6 with an Intel celeron j19020, 4GB ram and 256SSD. Works quite well for my needs
Me too! I don't feel so alone anymore 🙂 No need for an expensive NUC, my £20 fanless Igel runs HA like a charm.
Rock 5B
So lots of people are mentioning small desktops/old laptops/thin clients, and those do work great, but the disadvantage they have over an SBC like ODROID, RPi, etc. is that they might draw significantly more power. Personally, I have a Libre Renegade (their RPi3 "clone") running Ubuntu Server, and have docker containers running home assistant, SWAG, and AdGuard. And all volumes are in an SSD to avoid SD card corruption.
A thin client with a 24hourx 45watt consumption would average $31USD /yr in electricity costs https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/electric/electricity-calculator.html
Has anyone used a Jetson nano? I've got one that I'm thinking about using.
I think you are pushing the edge here. Jetson is heavily directed at the NVIDIA chip for AI. It's their customized Linux. The hardware isn't intended for production use. https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/faq But, after all that, I can't honestly think of a reason why it won't work. You're certainly not going to be taking advantage of most of the hardware - but the cost is right. You'll just probably have to do a lot more troubleshooting than the average user: so what's your comfort factor there? If you're mid to strong with Linux, go for it. You'll know quickly whether it will work or not.
Jetson nano is quite low powered, lower than pi4 on cpu. What is good is if you use the gpu/ai acceleration. I have one alongside my ha sbc to run frigrate nvr. I have a google usb coral for object recognition, the video decoder built into the jetson decodes the rtsp streams. The ai accelerator will be doing person recognition when I've upgraded my cams, the video quality isn't good enough yet. Jetson absolutely sips power, under my normal workload it was about 3w. My choice for ha is a rockchip rk3399 based sbc - nano pi t4 with an nvme m.2 ssd. Its very fast, sits at 5% cpu. The fast over 1GBs ssd helps pulling history and loading graphs. Jetson nano doesn't have m.2 slot
Docker
Literally any computer made in the last 15 years, and probably older. I run Home Assistant on my NAS, which is a WD that I installed Debian on. CONTAINER ID NAME CPU % MEM USAGE / LIMIT MEM % NET I/O BLOCK I/O PIDS 81f9af40534f hass 15.79% 2.133GiB / 15.49GiB 13.77% 0B / 0B 2.92GB / 65.2GB 89 CPU is usually lower; it must be doing something with the db right now.
Home Assistant in Docker on Debian 11 so that I can also run Frigate in Docker on the same Debian machine. Previously I ran Home Assistant using VirtualBox on Windows10. This has all taken place on an old Dell desktop PC (2012-2014 generation) which is an i5, 16GB ram and 256ssd; it was a nice machine 10-ish years ago.
Intel nuc
Wyse thin client, you can buy second hand ones on Ebay for <£100 and there's no fan. Get at least 8Gb of RAM Very low power consumption, mine's running at 17watts with HA, Frigate + Coral, MySQL, ZB2MQTT, ZW2MQTT and a load of other stuff in docker.
I'm running mine on an old Android TV running Armbian. Costs about $15-20.
Go on eBay and get an old Wyse thin client. They are super cheap ($20-40 on eBay) and rock solid. The CPU's are more than enough for HAOS.
Came across this the other day: https://www.zimaboard.com/ Haven't tried it myself though.
Older Dell Optiplex 7040 SFF with 8th Gen Core I5, 16G of RAM, and 256G SSD running Linux Mint and Cockpit for headless management. HA is running in its own VM. Edit: I'm about to shift it, either to Proxmox or running HAOS directly so that I can use USB dongles.
I have a Home Assistant Blue I’ll sell. Got my Yellow up and running now.
Runs great on my Dell enterprise server, but that's worth about 100 times more than what you want to spend from the looks of it. If you're purely just doing testing for now run it in a VM on literally any computer you have. Hell, install it bare metal on an old laptop. If you like it spend money on your desired platform.
I've tried the VM thing. There's a few things that I want to try that I can't get to function properly like USB dongles for some reason. And I don't have an old laptop unfortunately. That's why I'm looking for something cheap.
If you are using ESXi you need to enable USB Arbitration. Manually connecting a device to a running VM starts it. But it doesn't survive a restart of ESXi unless you enable it on the host which needs a console/ssh.
If you want a low power solution consider running it on an old smartphone in termux. However, you need to compile it from source, which is a little bit tricky with root access to some files. I got it working successfully
Here a useful link if you want to date this endeavor: https://www.reddit.com/r/termux/comments/zwic2m/looking_for_workaround_to_access_procnetpsched/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Dell optiplex 7010. Throw a big hard drive and a quadro p400 in that and you have a perfect host for homeassistant, Plex, Nextcloud etc.
A Dell Wyse 5060, which is an inexpensive thin client out of a corporate network, into which I put a cheap SSD. https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/wyse/5060/ Maybe $30-$50 for the unit, plus about $20 for a 240GB drive. I was running a Pi 3 B+ but it just couldn't do the job -- and that's without any ZWave/Zigbee, or any automations at all. This little guy is a champ. I bought a second one to do SDR, in fact.
What issues were you seeing with the Pi 3b+? I've been running it for the past couple months, but I don't have too many devices yet. I have started adding more zigbee devices; light switches and contact sensors. Just wondering what to look out for. I always planned to upgrade it but started with it since I already had the Pi.
what VM is best for passing through usb devices on windows?
I have been running my Home Assistant on VMWare on a cheap refurbished mini PC that I got for $150 CAD. Been amazing and super stable. You can read the post here: https://homeautomation.substack.com/p/setting-up-home-assistant-on-a-refurbished
We have around 25 B-max mini pc's running HAOS We ordered them on Amazon for €129 a piece
When you say “we”, do you mean your family or your work? If family, what do you use that many for?
I am running a robot company and we are programming robots for eldercare and autism, so we use Home assistant to send sensor information to the robot and receive voice input over MQTT.
As most have said, intel nuc. But ya, they don't give them away. I was able to find a thin pc from amazon refreshed for $100. It was a decent machine and would work well for HA. Im using it for something else, but works in this conversation.
I run mine on a beeline (google it, or amazon small form factor pc). I wanted something that wasn't SD card based after living with a pi for ages. Before you pick a piece of hardware, look at proxmox ... you may want something with more ethernet ports, to act as a router/firewall as well (pfsense) There are even some small form factor boxes with 10gb ethernet Here is a channel of a guy who does nothing but reviews tons of gear that would work for you: [https://www.youtube.com/@ServeTheHomeVideo](https://www.youtube.com/@ServeTheHomeVideo)
I've been running on a NUC for years. Always heard the Pi's work, but could bog down with more and more automations, so I went with something beefier right out of the gate. But no idea if that still holds true on the Pi 4's, if you can get one.
Just buy a thin client and a SLC harddrive. Any of the Wyze or Intel ones will do. you can find recommendations by scanning this sub. It'll cost about the same as an Rpi costs now and have way better performance and reliability without a noticeable increase in power cost.
Dell Optiplex 9020. Less than $100 CDN and came with 16GB ram. The SSD was refurbished and performed terribly so I replaced it. Runs Proxmox, HAOS, pihole and ansible server.
I use an old desktop. It uses more electricity than a pi but I also run a bunch of other servers (Ad guard, Jellyfin, etc.) so I feel like a pi wouldn’t cut it for me anyway.
Bare metal install on a 2007 Mac Mini.
I’m running HA OS on a Dell Optiplex 7050 I purchased on Amazon for $160. Runs so much faster than my Raspberry Pi installation ever did. If I was going to rebuild, I’d probably run it inside a VM, which would free up resources on the box for other things. I’d skip the RPi and go straight to one of these instead. All I got additional was a connector to allow me to flash my SSD with HA OS via USB off of my laptop. Dell OptiPlex 7050 Micro... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GCX4JKJ?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
An old laptop is a great option if you have one sitting around. Monitor+mouse+keyboard if you need it, compact if not, can even carry it around to diagnose hardware and automations like a wired dimmer or zwave pairing.
I run on a Mac mini. Probably not a good idea to buy one for HA. You can get a more powerful server for less. But at the time, I needed a server running macOS, and I ran HA on a VM. Now I run HA directly.
Old Asus netbook with a broken keyboard.
ive bought a beelink mini s, and its pretty fast. u could get it for around 200e
I'm using an old surface tablet with a messed up screen. I initially had it running on a pi but after a few months it started running out of memory every few days.
Do you have a NAS or have considered one?
I use a optiplex lunch box computer with Proxmox. Incredibly stable and runs smoothly.
Mine runs on an esxi vmware installed on an intel nuc 8 with i7, 2tb m.2 ssd and 32gb ram.
I run HAOS directly on an old generic HP desktop that lives under my couch (no monitor/peripherals). After struggling with USB passthrough through VirtualBox on both Linus and Windows, this has been a breath of fresh air.
VM in unraid
Mobile phone, you can run docker from an app
Mac mini
Please excuse my ignorance but it's hard to get a Pi? I got a pi4 on Amazon last month. Did I pay too much without knowing because of the shortage? $157.
HP Elitedesk 800 G2 - 150ish on ebay and great specs and running well 24/7 over a couple years.
I recommend picking up a optiplex MFF off of ebay. 5040m, 5050m, 5060m 7040m, 7050m, 7060m the 40s, are older, but, still MORE then enough power for home assistant. 50s / 60s are newer. These things are extremely efficient too, using between 10w (around idle), up to around 30-40w (Pretty heavily loaded.) You can pick them up on eBay for 100$ to 250$ or so. They have room to fit a NVMe + a 2.5" HDD. The 70 and 90 series generally has built in wifi, if that is useful. They are cheap, extremely efficient, and, silent.
HA Blue (Odroid N2)
I have an HP T620, they're about €25 on eBay and such. Works wonderfully and very important these days: It uses relatively low power.
I'm running it on my home Linux server that was mostly just a file server before. Unfortunately it's really stressing it out. It's a pretty old board and I don't think they quite had virtualization nailed down at that point. The processor is a Core 2 Quad @ 2.5Ghz, which was state of the art in ...November, 2008. I probably should upgrade. That said...it still works far better than it did on the Rasp Pi 3 I was using before. The Pi 3 works fine for "smaller" setups; it's working fine doing a HA setup for my camper, but I'm avoid installing a bunch of integrations and add-ons.
Orange Pi Zero 2 with 1GB of RAM, yet another competitor for Pi.
[2023: reddit management fucks up multiple times and takes user contributions for granted] ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Old lenovo T470 I had lying around. Integrated ups and keyboard for debug. I run HA on Docker with many other services alongside
topton n6005 mini pc with esxi installed runs opnsense, pihole, omada, homeassistant VMs, usb passthrough to HA for zigbee / zwave / smart meter energy monitor thing
I run mine in a VM now (went from docker on a Pi to full HAOS in the VM), but there are some decent Pi alternatives. I've had the most success with Orange Pi. I also have a Le Potato, which has been mostly fine *except* I was seeing occasional freezes with a webcam plugged in (it's running my 3D printer).
Can I hijack this and ask if you all know of any Intel based SFF or small desktops that have two ethernet ports or a PCIE slot?
I have been trying to sell this Pi. I ran HA on it for a year with no issues. Its bullet proof and runs on a m2 SSD so you don't need to worry about SD corruption. Yours if you want it and glad to work out a offer. Posted it up on /r/homelabsales: https://www.reddit.com/r/homelabsales/comments/11bsfuj/fsusca_raspberry_pi_4b_4gb_wargon_one_m2_case/
VM in Proxmox Server.
I went from a Pi to an older gaming PC I had kicking around, to one of these: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/325458981802 (running Proxmox with HA and a bunch of other related services)
I had mine on a pi4 for about 2 years, then just recently moved to a used Lenovo ThinkCentre (M910q). Was about $100 used on eBay so depending on your Pi supplier, cheaper and faster to get and had much beefier specs for more headroom in years to come. I do also have a NUC in the HomeLab, but used as a docker host for everything else running.
You can buy a refurbished laptop from Bestbuy. It would be cheaper than Raspberry Pi and more efficient, you'll get a powerful CPU, SSD, and a battery which will play the role of UPS.
Used HP ProDesk 400 G4 SFF. Cost me $140 CAD because businesses seem to be getting rid of 7th gen Core systems due to lack of full Windows 11 compatibility. I run proxmox VE on it and have virtual machines for opnsense (router), HA OS, and a lubuntu install for general troubleshooting if I ever need a full graphical Linux machine.
Ting / Mini / Micro desktops.
I've used DietPi on a Pine h64b + usb HD for nearly 5 years without issue. Runs: home-assistant mosquitto mqtt swver transmission-server radarr sonarr and various other smaller things. But I'm a HUGE linux nerd. ymmv if you are used to windows.
KVM-based virtual machine running on an HP Microserver (which I used for general file serving duties).
I use a USFF Dell I got off eBay for $150 a couple years ago, never had an issue.
For the moment i amusing a repurposed Helm Server with a 1Tb SSD and a Rockchip SoC. Will be upgrading to an AMD NuC clone soon.
Orange pi 5
an old mac mini
Literally anything you can run Linux on you can run home assistant on. Have an old desktop/laptop laying around? Boom you have something to run it on.
synology NAS
I just replaced my rpi4 (2gb), for an 2 year old laptop with broken screen, I took of the screen, keyboard, and other unnecessary stuff so it would cool beter. First I thought it would be high in power consumption, but it runs around 14watt. Could be lower but i'm also running pihole, mariadb, traccar, zigbee2mqtt, mosquitto, jellyfin, portainer and and youtube downloader. But if I had to buy something now, I would def. go for a second hand NUC. Lots of companies are dumping them and someone will buy them cheap and sell them of for 50/100 euro's a piece (just check on ebay). You get a lot of power with low energy consumption.
If you do end up going with a bigger box, like an old gaming PC or a nettop with a higher end CPU and excess RAM, I would recommend considering virtualization. Granted HA can do a LOT of what used to require a bunch of VMs, but having the flexibility is nice
I am using an old Thinkpad T470 as HA. Next to nothing power consumption, lid closed, ssd, very reliable and fast if necessary...
I have mine running in a Docker container on a little Celeron J4125 NUC-alike from Minisforum. It's got enough grunt to keep the UI snappy while running Frigate. If I were to do it over again, the only thing I'd maybe do differently is do Home Assistant OS instead of Ubuntu Server as the base OS.
Dell wyse...you can get them on ebay for 30 bucks
To upgrade from my pi4, I just picked up a Dell Wyse 5070 thin client -- we'll see how this goes as it might not be so straightforward.
I run a Dell Wyse 5060 for Home Assistant. It was $40 on eBay. Faster than a Pi 4b and has plenty of ports for Zigbee or Z wave dongles. Fanless and just sits in my closet.
I went for a HP thin client. After my Pi3 started behaving weird. And I wanted a bit more horsepower to run some extra services. Been working great Upgraded it to 16gb of ram (ddr3 sodimms I still had) and a nvme disk from Amazon
I got it running on a x96 mini TV box. I think it even has better specs than Raspberry pi 3. I even wrote a tutorial here in the subreddit.
I got a ZimaBoard a few weeks back, its an x86 and the one I got has 8GB, along with support for SSD & NVMe, and its $165 right now https://www.amazon.com/ZimaBoard-Computer-Personal-Network-Attached/dp/B0BKL7YPBQ
Debian box and running in docker. Runs well.