No Pi? No Problem! Home Assistant on a Cheap Thin Client
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 พ.ค. 2024
- Discover how to set up Home Assistant on a Thin Client Computer with this step-by-step guide. Today's video is perfect for those looking to start their smart home journey but are facing supply chain issues with Raspberry Pi. We'll walk you through the hardware requirements, the process of flashing Home Assistant to the hard drive, and configuring Home Assistant for the first time.
No Raspberry Pi? No problem! Our video will show you how a Thin Client Computer can be an excellent alternative for building your smart home.
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▶ Timestamps ⌚:
00:00 - Opening
01:16 - Introduction
02:23 - Hardware
05:47 - Flashing Home Assistant
10:02 - First Boot of Home Assistant
11:15 - Initial Setup
13:21 - Final Thoughts
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Great Video ... I have HA running on a RPi 4 with an SSD drive connected to ethernet. I also run Zigbee devices on Zigbee2Mqtt with a Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB dongle . Close to 160 devices run (40 on Zigbee) on present RPi 4+SSD, I have just got a "Dell Optiplex 7040 Micro Form Factor Desktop, Intel Quad Core i5 6500T 2.5Ghz, 16GB DDR4, 256GB NVMe SSD " . What would you suggest as the best way to migrate to the Optiplex ?
I'm running HAOS on a Lenovo 1L PC (6th gen i5), but as a VM under Proxmox. Adds some complexity (mainly with USB device passthrough for the Zigbee/ZWave dongles), but it's still pretty straightforward, and you can do other things with the machine at the same time if you want. But lots of ways to skin this cat.
Thanks for the video, well explained. Thinking about getti ng optiplex for this project. I have one question: will there be a conflict for this HA and third party apps to run con-currently? Right now I have different apps for different devices. Not fun. Thx!
This worked great. Thank you.
I had many problem when i tried to install HAOS. So i scraped that plan and installed a very slim install of Debian 11 instead. The only i installed was openssh before i installed Home Assistant Supervised for Linux.
And i can use the same computer for other as well.
How do you compare the thin client Vs an EliteDesk 800 G2 with am i5 6500T?
I bought a Wyse 5070 about a year ago and love it. Thanks for great video
It is quite a capable little machine! I am excited about all of the USB ports!
@@ThisSmartHouse I really like this video I am old and new to this. My only issue with the Dell Wyse 5070 I got it keeps booting to the Dell OS and not my SSD. I have made some changes in the BIOS but nothing works to boot it off the SSD to get to HA....any advice to what you did to your Sir. Thx
If you install home assistant can you also use the wyse for other things? I was hoping to do a vpn as well as home assistant. Is this possible? This will be my first time doing anything like this so guidance is welcomed. Thanks in advance!
You are awesome! This is a great video. Could you please make a HomeBridge version of “how to” video with the Dell Wyse 5070? Thank you for explaining things where I can easily understand the complete set up! 👍
I've also switched to using thin clients as an alternative to pis.
It's just too hard and expensive to get a pi. And with the pi, you still need to add a case, heatsinks etc.
And having a proper ssd is much better than relying on a micro SD
I know the new pi 5 supports real ssds, but good luck actually managing to find one in stock.
Thin clients use very little power, so it's still a viable alternative.
10 out 10 bro Option 2 Best option
thank you for this video!
Have you had a chance to measure power consumption of this system?
about 3.5 watts (8Gb ram & 64GB HDD) - and it reboots in less than a min! Awesome little package! I was running HA off a Synology, but had all sorts of Zigbe USB and other issues - and not as fast as the 5070.
Thank you, helpful guide.
Glad it was helpful!
Super helpful video! Thanks boss
Glad to be of help!
Which Z-wave and Zigbee sticks do you recommend to buy and how do you add them?
Great Video, I recommend this method because SD Cards are so unreliable in a Pie. My only comment I would make would be if your picking up one of there Thin Clients, Nuc, or any other Micro PC is to change the CMOS battery if it is equipped while you have the unit open. In my experience I setup my MicroPC and everything worked perfect for a couple months until it didn't. I thought what is happening, nothing was working, did something go wrong with the HA Setup. It was only after I installed a monitor that I noticed the PC was getting stuck on BIOS checksum error on boot because the CMOS Battery was dead. (These units are a few years old, so the 2032 Button Battery was probably the original... so for only a buck or two, change it while you have the cover off!)
Great point! I never check that these days.
Great video. Question, I am seeing lots of 5070 thin clients with the J5005 processor. Is that an acceptable substitution? TIA
I am sure it would work. Home Assistant is pretty light on hardware requirements. I mean it runs great on a Pi, which is a weaker processor.
@@ThisSmartHouse Thanks for the quick reply. I'll pick one up.
Liked & Subscribed 👌
Thanks for this and all other vids Ryan!
I've been playing around HA on a RPi4 and now I want to install it on a thin client. What are your learnings about zigbee implementation (dongle, coverage, meshed network) when moving your home server away from either your studio, or to a laundry room? I've watched your other videos and couldn't find your insights on how to ensure proper zigbee coverage throughout your entire home when your home server is "hidden" in a laundry room or basement... 🤔
Thanks again from Chile 👍!
You are welcome!
The nice thing about zigbee is most powered devices act as repeaters. So if you have your zigbee radio at one end of your house, the devices will mesh and extend. Zigbee smart outlets and light switches are the best for this. Bulbs can be finicky.
If you use zigbee2MQTT, you can host your zigbee radio on a completely different device from home assistant and have it communicate via MQTT.
Great reply, thanks @@ThisSmartHouse! Will give z2MQTT a try 👍
Hi
I have been using HA for a while now but I have a issue all lights turning on by then self
The log in HA show that they have been turn on by service light.turn_on
What do you think is causing this.
ZeroTier is one way of having very secure remote access to a Home Assistant installation that is otherwise hidden away behind a firewall. ZT has clients for phones too and you can also run it on an OPNSense firewall.
I will have to check it out. I am using a hybrid (due to all of the testing I do). I have Nabu Casa (mostly for the Google Assistant integration), port forwarding, and I have started using CloudFlare Zero Trust (which I LOVE).
@@ThisSmartHouse I do a lot less compared to your complex setup and just focus on having as little proprietary stuff as possible, because I want whatever I have built to function when the internet goes down. Currently looking into how I can have my phone still act as a remote control over lora even if I have no mobile network. Unfortunately there is little interest from ZT to port it to the ESP32 so I have to look at getting husarnet working on everything eventually.
I'm sitting on an Home Assistant Yellow. Compute Module 4s are all out of stock/backorder. Ill probably go this rout. It was stupid of me to not check for part availability.
I got my 5070 running great on DietPi. It has Ethernet driver ready Realtek. It's on CasaOS, jellyfin, ADguard. Currently working in getting a time machine apple on it/Nas compatible Apple 🍏😅
I have given up on using the internal SSD slot and I am in stead booting through one of the USB slots. That works fine. I do have a problem however. I would like to access things like wifi switches through the internal wifi but I can't get the internal wifi to work. (Dell Wyse 5070 Thin with internal wifi and also 16Gb SSD chip on the main pcb.) Can any one give me some hint on how to get the internel wifi to work?
Thanks - great video. Would Wyse 3040 N10D suffice?
It might work, but it is running an Atom processor the only ones I could find are 2GB. It might be ok to play with, but you will want more RAM than that.
Great video!
I did it your way and a couple of other ways but I just cant get it to boot on my 10 year old-ish computer I had laying around. It promts me to insert a boot media or something like that.
Secure boot is disabled but I have no way of choosing boot mode in the bios. The motherboard in question is asrock h77m-itx. Greatful for any help. Thanks.
Are you able to boot Ubuntu from a flash drive?
@@ThisSmartHouse yes. I have tried that and it works.
Probably a boot device issue on BIOS
What happens when you try and install Ubuntu from the flash drive? It fails after reboot. Like @rishabmehta7 said, make sure that the hard drive is set as the default boot device and make sure that RAID is turned off (this is a problem with Dell machines).
I'm using a Dell Wyze N03D for mine that I bought for 20$ it has 32gb mSATA SSD and 4gb of RAM, it runs home assistant on bare metal very well, it also idles at 5W and peaks at 15W so it's definitely worth it for the price that I paid for it
I just love how little power it uses. I am working on migrating my live set up from my pi 8gb to my thin client. It will be nice to start over.
Great video, I've just ordered a 128gb wyse pc. It apparently already has Windows 10 installed and configured. Is there any reason i shouldn't simply add home assistant to the existing windows os?
I would recommend installing Home Assistant by itself. It will be more reliable that way.
Pis are great if you need things the gpio pins otherwise it’s thin clients all day. I have the 5070 with the slightly later j5005 and it idles at 3.5w which is equivalent to a pi
I've been using a Dell-Wyse 3090 for a little over a year. 8GB RAM, 64GB SSD, 35 bucks. Works like a charm. What compelled you to use a 1 TB SSD?
The fact that I could get it quickly on Amazon. 🤣 There's absolutely no need for that big of a hard drive.
The enclosure you have in your kit is for mini SATA's. I tried using the enclosure but it doesn't fit the M.2. SATA III you recommended.
Let me double check, I could have accidentally swapped the enclosure I was using (being in IT, I have a ton). Thanks for pointing that out!
Hey Ryan, just wanna say thanks for your vid. Got myself the Wyse 5070 and could not be happier, albeit took some time but all sorted, from a backup. However, I thought I could run the HAOS off a USB key and wipe the 64GB hard drive - but seems I need the USB key, otherwise it boots into the pre-installed Win10. I did purchase a caddy for the drive which I will follow your steps - thus removing the WIN OS (and having more space). I came over from having HA on a Synology NAS which was good, but a pain at times with Zigby and other devices, not to mention the power consumption, albeit small, but this Wyse uses ~3.5w!
So happy the video help (and inspired you to get it set up)! Did you remove the included hard drive? In the video I flashed a new mSATA drive with HAOS and swapped out the original drive. You can flash over the included 64GB drive, that would be enough room to start with. But you might want to upgrade in the near future. You can always backup your Home Assistant and restore it once you flashed the drive.
Let me know if you run into any issues!
@@ThisSmartHouse I used the included 64GB (yeah I will look at upgrading to a larger storage), hoping the USB key with HA on it would wipe the win OS - but I dont think HA can do that - it either needs to be run in Linux, or flashed onto disk - I did not have the caddy for the NVME drive, which got delivered today. So Im now loading the HA image onto the NVMe drive, insert it back into the thin client and take it from there. A few hours work to get HA back up and running - my wife has been complaining about the automation not being around :)
@@fearthesmeag Yeah you would probably have to do that in two phases. Glad you got it figured out. Hopefully you got the right adapter. When I first released the video I had the wrong adapter (NVME vs mSATA), but fixed it a few months ago. The Wyse units use the older mSATA style drives.
@@fearthesmeag I get it, my wife complains all of the time about how complex our home is. But when the lights don’t turn on or the shades don’t close, she complains!
@@ThisSmartHouse Yup got the correct one and no issues with it as I made sure via the product description. The restore from backup was super quick - most of the automatons are working now, just tweaking a few again. But yeah, thanks again Ryan for an awesome vid - subbed and looking forward to see what else you have on your channel!
Hi....how do you manage the situation when the pc for some reason turn off, for example a power interruption?
You can go into the bios and set power recovery options so the computer turns on when power is applied. It is called different things on different computers.
@@ThisSmartHouse Thanks!!! And specifically does this pc have this function?
@msb3172 yes it does. I think most modern computers have it.
I think it’s a best practice to use a Intel mini pc with the new n100 or 95 these solds with ram and ssd for 139 eur on geek buying and are much more futureproof
This is about as future proof as a Pi. But that would work as well.
Thank you very much for your excellent video. I am new to HA and my computer expertise is limited. I bought a Trycom WI-6 Mini PC, FN501 Pro NVMe SSD • M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 x4 Internal SSD, and SSK Aluminum M.2 NVME SATA SSD Enclosure Adapter. I was able to follow your instructions and flash the SSD with HA and use it to replace the SSD in the Trycom. (The Trycom ran fine with Windows 11 on the original SSD.) When I attempt to boot the Trycom with the HA SSD it will only come up in the bios. I set the UEFI PXE BOOT SUPPORT to ENABLED and SECURE BOOT to Disabled but it still only comes up in bios. I removed and reflashed the SSD and tried it again but no luck. Do you know of anything I can try?
Thank you
I'm in the same boat with Dell Wyse 5070 only boots to the internal OS which is ThinOS will not see the SSD...invested a lot here also
Hey @barrowrw & @ParcoUpchurch I would be happy to help you both troubleshoot. It would be easier over at our discord: TSH.li/discord
@@ThisSmartHouse Will do Sir...thank you for helping us seniors... I will say welcome on Discord this one is new for me
Well I have my Home Assistant running on my k3s cluster and it's fun to play with.
Thats cool! How do you handle attached hardware (Z-wave sticks, etc)?
@@ThisSmartHouse Well I don't have any attached hardware but to my understanding they could be passed in somehow. Right now my Home Assistant only changes my roku tv to the News 9 App. I hope to add something like a Aeotec Smart Home Hub that will work with things like Z-Wave or Zigbee though.
A quick question I have been seeing a lot of HA tutorials where everyone uses 256gb of storage but HA only uses about 16gb . Is there a rationale for using such large storage SSDs? Or is it just availability since it’s harder to find 32gb SSDs now.
It's mostly because the 256 gig drives are just as cheap. But just like with most operating systems it only uses a small amount for the base OS but if you want to add any add-ons then those will consume more hard drive space.
great job kid.
can use frigate ? thank you 🙏
Yes you can install Frigate!
I cant get into Bios with my dell wyse 5070, it just boots to the windows. I tried Del, F2 key. It doesn't get into it.
Disable secure boot in bios
Finally received the Sabrent device you linked in your hardware kit and it is does not work for an M.2 device. Very disappointed about it.
Hmmm. Let me double check.
Was this the one? amzn.to/47tpJb1
Skydrop irrigation system went out of business. Can it be integrated?
Unless someone figures it out a way to access a local API, and there servers are down, then I don't think you can use it. I found an integration someone wrote but it says it uses the cloud API: github.com/snicker/skydrop_hass
watched this whole video knowing that im never going to do this lol the magic of 4am youtube browsing
DO IT! Trust me, getting into Home Assistant is fun. But be aware of the impact on your wallet…
How do you get a browser to put the IP of home assistant in. All I see is the command line
You access the web UI from another computer or the official phone app.
I purchased a WD m.22 and used Etcher to flash Home Assistant (HA) onto it. However, after the flashing process was finished, I am unable to locate the drive on my computer to restore the Home Assistant backup I had created. An error message indicates that I lack the necessary permissions to access the drive. How can I transfer my Home Assistant backup file onto the hard drive and initiate the restoration process?
Once you flash the drive it changes to a Linux OS. So not readable by Windows without a special app.
But, the solution is easy. Go ahead and boot Home Assistant and there is an option to restore your backup (from a flash drive ). Or you can set up a fresh HA, install the SAMBA plug in, then move the files over the network. You can always restore over the fresh install.
@@ThisSmartHouse Thanks a ton for the quick response! Your explanation makes total sense. I'll give booting into Home Assistant a shot and restore from the flash drive. If that doesn't work out, I'll take your advice on setting up a fresh HA, installing the SAMBA plug-in, and moving the files over the network. Appreciate the guidance-fingers crossed for a smooth restoration process!
Is it possible to avoid the purchase of that M.2 Sata to USB and just use an empty external HDD drive? Buying such a device just for one time flashing is not a budget-friendly situation. Or are there other ways?
You could just use the bootable USB method found here: www.home-assistant.io/installation/generic-x86-64/
Works on Thin clients With processor ARM PX30?
I would think it would work because Home Assistant runs on Pi’s, those are ARM processors. You might do some digging or ask on the Home Assistant discord.
With the new Intel N100 Chips low-power PC's are getting better by the month.
Already eying one with a USB-C power adapter.
Meaning I could use a 100W multi-port charger, to power it, and have a few usb ports free for other devices like a 5V network switch that uses USB.
Sadly there are only 1-2 of them on the market now, but soon if more come out, it will be a great solution for a low-power Home-assistant setup.
My current setup uses a PI, with 2 cases merged into 1 [ heatsink case, and box-case, which makes it look like it does not have a heatsink, but it in fact does, av-temp without fans= 55C]
how about if we are on static ip, do i need to assign it manually?
You mean you have a static IP address on your internet connection? Or you're saying you have a static IP address you want to set up on the device? You can set a static IP address in home assistant under settings and network.
@@ThisSmartHouse i’m going to setup HA on office however we are on static ip, so ok im just gonna set it up on HA settings, right? Thanks sir
@BTLLGR Yes. Do you already have it set up somewhere with a dynamic address and you're just going to move it someplace with a static? It's pretty easily done via the web interface. But if you don't have access to the web UI you will have to do a via command line.
@@ThisSmartHouse yup. Thanks a lot big help 👌🏻
Great guide to setup a first time build of HA. Ive always thought about upgrading from my Pi4 4GB but I'm only using 3% of the CPU and 1 of the 4GB of ram.
Crazy how much power isn't needed to run HA
It just sips resources. We will see how the thin client does vs the pi.
@@ThisSmartHouse The thin client has the advantage of the M.2 my Argon One Fourty is using the M.2 over USB 3.
Yeah I wonder if that added speed will make a difference on bot. My 8GB pi takes 5-10 minutes to fully load everything.
I think it is time for me to make the move. My pi4b has frozen twice in the past week or so. Had to turn off the power/back on. It boots from a ssd and hardly uses any space or memory. But I have a Dell 5060 with 8gb ram and a 256gb SSD I can use. Factory wifi also. I did a test install a few days ago and all went well. My concern is I want to make it have the same IP Address as the old pi has. I've seen video of that somewhere and plan to look it up. That should make it a fairly easy transfer once a backup is restored to the new system. Fingers crossed. :)
Can i just use the hard drive thats already installed in the thin client?
The ones that come with it are usually too small. You can to test with.
Probably mentioning that you can only control WiFi connected, or internet connected devices would have been nice. You want to add some dongle to the system right away to control your ZigBee, Zwave and matter devices.
I did mention that. I specifically pointed out that the first thing home assistant does is seek out devices it communicates with. And the fact that if you add z wave or zigbee sticks you will have to set up communication.
Matter devices work natively as they are network based.
@@ThisSmartHouse Sorry, seems I've missed that :)
Hey no worries. I know I didn't EXPRESSLY call it out. I did assume that the average person would know that. But you are right, I might add it to the description and blog post. Especially for those folks coming from SmartThings, that have other protocols built in.
First video where I did not learn anything new😅😅
Moved my stuff to a thin client months ago. Using the Pi as a test system.
As always great video very precise and shirt enough to not bore but long anough to not skip any gothas
Thanks Rishab! Always great to hear from you! Glad you got your systems moved over. I am going to work on moving off my Pi over the next week. I am actually going to start fresh. I have so many test devices in my current environment that it is starting to cause issues.
Even i did a fresh start instead of migrating. Gives me newer ideas and better naming options.
Moore by this. I'm newbee to HA
Well we are glad you're here. What sort of things are you working on?
Just set up HA but disappointed to find that it won't control my Samsung TV due to it being on a different VLAN. Smarthings had no problems controlling it though.
You can always add a second virtual NIC to your home assistant and assign it a vlan.
I did this when I was testing out Matter on my Aqara M2 hub, it is pretty easy.
Can we install HA on 32 bit old PC?
Yes you can, according to this post: community.home-assistant.io/t/hass-hassos-on-an-old-32-bit-laptop/400235/5
I have 2 old laptops that I don't use. Can I use them instead of buying a single board computer?!?!
Yes you can!
I use a hp620 thin client after my pi decided not to play
Best decision I ever made.
I have one also. But it is running Linux/Octoprint server controlling 2 3d printers. No issues. Nice and fast. Printers are in the garage, and lazy me is in the office in the house. :)
does home assistant replace smart life ?
Tuya Smart Life? Kind of. It will replace the automations side as you can integrate direction with the Tuya Cloud.
Damn, You are the double of Vladimer Zelensky, Thanks for the tip about copy the image and not the compressed files to the data USB.
I really don't understand what y'all are doing with HA. Saying a 32GB drive isn't enough, people saying a pi3 isn't enough, I have HA running on pi3 with debian 12 running the HA container plus some other containers for MQTT, sponsorblock and pihole. And still like 300-400MB of RAM that are still usable.
Also you can't "just upgrade the RAM like any other computer" - these boxes(or rather the cheap mobile processors they use, especially with Intel) come with limitations and even models from 2019 may limit you to a max of 8GB of RAM.
Also with all the mods you made and what they cost I don't see how you think the price argument vs the Pi is still valid - a full pi4 set comes 100-150 bucks, pi5 is like 200, with the the additional power consumption of that Dell box you're easily spending more money(75$ base unit, 20$ for a hard drive, 15$ for the M.2-USB adapter, that's already 110$ - more than the pi4 set, plus, depending on the age of the box, the price of 1 kWh and what pi you compare it to an additional 10-50 bucks a year for your electricity bill) and time(especially beginners might run into difficulties with non-standard hardware that they can't easily debug themselves) comparatively...
While I understand your arguments, your numbers are way off. HA is a platform that can be used for more than just the basics. We are prepping folks to have limitless options.
1. Drive Size: 32gb is just barely enough to run the base image plus some add-ons. Your database grows year over year. Plus there are a TON of add-ons that would consume more space than the ones your listed. If someone sets up Frigate, then they are going to need a ton of space to store images/video. If you set up any video / camera software it is going to need more space.
2. RAM: If you buy a 2 or 4GB ThinClient, it is easy to upgrade to 8 or 16GB (not that you need it, but if you want to run 50+ containers you might see a benefit).
3. Costs: Pi’s are not $75 unless you are lucky. They have been consistently going for 2-3x the cost on the resale market. Also, a Pi with an SD card does not equal a ThinClient. The only stable way to run HA long term on a Pi is an SDD. So my 8gb Pi (purchased in 2020) was $85, plus the SSD adapter $20, plus the SSD $25, plus USB hubs for all of the sticks, $20 (double the cost of the Pi in todays world). Where as the ThinClient was $60-$80, plus an SSD $25, plus the adapter $20 and you are done.
4. Power: Check the comments, these ThinClients are built to be power savers. They consume just barely more W than a standard ThinClient. When you add fans, SDDs, and hubs, that amount is almost the same. 1kWh???? My house consumes 1kWh when I am not home, all of my servers, appliances, etc…
@@ThisSmartHouse
1. Sure, for video and photos you probably want a larger disk. But they don't need to be extremely fast unless you're doing security footage, but then honestly, you can't seriously recommend a thin client instead of a proper small efficient server with some form of (software) RAID and the proper hardware that will last people for more than 2 or 3 summers. Same with tons of containers. Most people don't have a backup(it's sad but that's just reality) so some form of RAID with notifications for data storage is a must, which in an end-user case will almost always be some form of NAS device that you pay a few bucks extra for not the hardware but the convience.
2. Again, with many of these thin clients(especially the older ones) you simply cannot upgrade them to more than 8GB of RAM. That's a hardware limitation. And some other thin clients you just outright can't upgrade because their RAM is soldered onto the board because they're simply not meant to be upgraded.
3. I literally just now bought a new Pi4 kit on amazon for 110€. With power adapter, cooling, 64G SD card and a case. Also just looked it up, 2 out of 5 shops here in Germany have the Pi5 stocked(just the unit, no kit) for ~90 bucks. So when you say 2-3x on the resale market.. Then either your local market in the US(I presume?) is just outright shit or you might be able to work on your buying strategy.
4. Tbh idk why you get so hung up on the 1kWh when I said "the price of 1 kWh". As in 1kWh as the base unit. The device itself obviously uses some fraction of that but when you run it 24/7 you'll accrue some kWh/a, which is the relevant unit here - difference in power consumption p.a. and the resulting extra cost p.a. - because if you're in a market that doesn't burn cheap fuel oil and coal and does have some for of environmental/CO2 taxes(you know, like many of the half a billion people in the european market), you'll probably need to worry about those extra 5 to 50 watts the x86 platform can burn compared to ARM. The simple reality is that with 30 cents per kWh, every 5 Watts more on a 24/7 device are 13 bucks per year. A Pi you can easily keep for 5-10 years, so if it just saves 5 Watts per hour compared to the x86 thin client(realistically more from what I have seen at work, especially given how horribly ineffient the older power bricks for these thin clients are - RPi5 now even supports PD, which means you can get an off-the-shelf PD GaN adapter), that's 65-130 bucks over the lifetime you literally just burnt on power ineffiency that you could have invested in something else. So imo if you *really* need features like mass storage, you're better off buying modern hardware and setting up redundancy(does HAOS even allow for that?) or setting up some cheap second hand NAS with fresh disks and if you don't need mass storage and don't want to deal with too much hassle, it's easier to just pay the extra 30 bucks on a pi and save those thrice in the long run.
5. Also because I've seen others make that claim - have you actually ever had reliabilty issues with a pi or it's storage? I've had Pi's for work and in private for a decade now and in my experience the thing that usually breaks first isnt the storage but the pi or the power adapter. So I'm honestly interested if SD card reliability is an issue which brands and/or models to avoid? :)
"Unless you have a Displayport Display - but nobody really has those" WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT STATEMENT. I don't know when the last time was when I've seen a monitor WITHOUT Displayport. Even the dirt cheap monitors at our office have DP.
Also why not keep the Windows install on the Thin-Client and install HA with Docker? That way you can use the Thin-Client for other server applications as well.
Wow..... Ok.
I work in IT, and most of the lower end monitors don't have DP ports.
Why not run it under windows? Because you want it reliable.
@@ThisSmartHouse My issue is mainly with how you said it. It's just not true that nobody has DP and you have to go really low in price to not have DP.
I repurposed an old Windows laptop to act as a server on which I have my media server, a minecraft server and Pi Hole in a Docker container running for nearly 2 years now without any issues. It's just that you could do more with that machine than just have it's sole purpose to be for Home Assistant
In all of the homes I have worked in I have only found a few people with DP ports. Plus a lot of folks use a TV when setting these up, so they need an adapter.
Also, it was a bit of a joke...
I agree you can do more with the machine. But if it is running your home, I would suggest not running on windows. I have my HA instance running on a dedicated box, but I have another mini PC running proxmox, it has about 50 services running on it.
By the time someone has installed his HA on a Raspberry with SSD, i have bought a cheap second hand lenovo mini pc for half the price of a PI, x64 cpu, 8gb ram, multiple usb ports, wired network, much more reliable and powerful, very low energy consumption, even if breaks i can afford to buy two more for the price of a PI
That's why I made this video. so folks know there's another alternative out there if you wanted to step up from just a basic pi with SD card.
The most important disadvantage is that home assistant is not free like smartthings. I was used to turning on the lights using Alexa, which in home assistant you have to pay for. Home assistant is hopeless compared to smarttings. Examples: sometimes it shows that the lights are on when they are not on, sometimes the thermostats are offline, then after 2 days they are online, Motion sensors sometimes work and sometimes they don't work. I thought it would be faster because it is local compared to smartthings - it is not. I am disappointed with how it works after watching videos praising the home assistant. I think most of these videos are sponsored.
A couple of items to clarify:
1. Home Assistant is 100% free and open source.
2. You can achieve everything offered as part of the Nabu Casa subscription for free (Google Assistant, Alexa, Remote Access). Albeit not every can do the required port forwarding.
I came from SmartThings and had all of the same issues with devices dropping and going offline. Home Assistant relies on the underlying tech for things like Z wave and Zigbee.
What specific devices are you having issues with? I have had issues with my older Z wave devices and had to periodically ping them. Turns out, SmartThings did that automatically in the background. In HA, you can write a simple automation to do it.
Am I need to pay for voice assistants like alexa or google? YES! That's why it is not free. It require to to pay $5 every month for what is free in smartthings. @@ThisSmartHouse
Nope, you don’t. You can do either one completely free. It just requires you jumping through a lot of hoops to set up the developer accounts. Plus you have to have port forwarding and more. You are paying Nabu Casa because they are maintaining the bridge to make it quick ands easy.
Here are the how to documents:
- Google Assistant: www.home-assistant.io/integrations/google_assistant/#manual-setup-if-you-dont-have-home-assistant-cloud
- Alexa: www.home-assistant.io/integrations/alexa/#manual-setup
The dev team at Nabu Casa is much smaller, so the cloud server space has to get paid for somewhere.
Not Very Clear in the video
If you struggle with the concepts maybe check out the raspberry pi getting started video.
What obout telling people that they need to boot up home assistant after flashing, with a screen and keyboard, so they can connect to wifi if that is there prefered choice. If you are gonna make a step by step how to video, you cannot skip such an important step.