Hardware and Home Assistant
Every journey to a smart home begins with choosing the right heart of the system – hardware. The choice of the device on which Home Assistant will run is crucial as it affects not only performance but also stability and expandability of the entire system. To ensure your home is smart not just on paper, you need to carefully consider which type of device best meets your needs and expectations.
You can choose from a wide range of options, from single-board computers like Home Assistant Green or Raspberry Pi, through multi-purpose servers like NAS Synology, for backups, video streaming, etc., to general x86 computers.
Each of these options brings different advantages and certain compromises. For example, if you want minimal power consumption and compact size, single-board computers are an ideal choice. However, if you are looking for high performance, it is better to turn to a more powerful computer.
In this chapter, I will introduce you to various types of Home Assistant installations and show you how they are related to the choice of hardware. For each type of installation, you will also find detailed guides that will take you step by step through the entire process, from basic settings to advanced configurations.
Hardware is also very closely tied to possible installation types. Here we have them summarized first, and then for some of them, you will find detailed procedures with examples.
If you don't want to go into these details, I will tell you right away that if you want to start with a smart home and Home Assistant, you can definitely get by with the Home Assistant Green device, which already has Home Assistant pre-installed, and you don't have to deal with installation types at all - which I recommend if you are just starting.
If you want to use Zigbee devices for your smart home, also get the Home Assistant SkyConnect USB adapter. Consider also a Bluetooth adapter like the one from TP-Link, but its use is less beneficial than Zigbee.
Home Assistant Green
Centrální jednotka - sloužící k ovládání domácnosti přímo od tvůrců Home Assistanta.
Home Assistant SkyConnect
USB adaptér pro připojení Zigbee / Thread zařízeních k chytré domácnosti od tvůrců Home Assistanta.
TP-Link UB500, Bluetooth 5.0 Nano USB Adapter
Bluetooth adaptér externí, připojení USB 2.0Types of Home Assistant Installation
Historically, the installation options for Home Assistant have evolved as Home Assistant itself has evolved. Initially, it was more or less an application (a set of scripts in Python), but over time it became more and more integrated with hardware.
For completeness, you will find in the table all the installation types that are possible today, but as you can see in the graph next to it, today we can focus only on two types - the complete operating system from HA and the docker image running in a container.
| Home Assistant version | Operating System | Supervisor | Installation Complexity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operating System | Only HA Operating System (HassOS) | ✅ | Simple |
| Supervised | Only Linux Debian | ✅ | Medium |
| Container | Any Linux running Docker | ❌ | High |
| Core | Any running Python | ❌ | Highest |
source: analytics.home-assistant.io/
- HA Operating System (HassOS)
- HA Supervised
- HA Container
- HA Core
Basic Features
- complete functionality of Home Assistant in a special operating system HassOS.
- full capabilities of the Supervisor.
- generally recommended installation method - I would try to evaluate first if you can use it.
- a lot of supported hardware directly from Home Assistant.
Hardware
- Home Assistant Green - the latest computer directly from the creators of Home Assistant
- Raspberry Pi 5 / 4 / 3 - the most popular single-board computer
- General x86-64 computer - e.g., Intel NUC via
generic-x86-64image - Virtual machine x84-64 / AMD64 - via
ovaimage
... and others that are now rather marginal:
- Home Assistant Yellow - a slightly older and different philosophy computer from the creators of Home Assistant
- Tinkerboard - Raspberry alternative from Asus
- ODROID C2, C4, N2, M1, and XU4 - other but stronger Raspberry alternatives
Basic Features
- full functionality of Home Assistant in the Linux Debian operating system.
- full capabilities of the Supervisor.
- "do it yourself" solution - the user is responsible for installing all necessary components and keeping them up to date.
- requires knowledge of Linux operating system management, Docker, and networking.
Hardware (examples)
- Orange Pi 5 - alternative to Raspberry from OrangePi
Basic Features
- only running the HA Core application on a native container system - Docker.
- no Supervisor capabilities, and therefore no Supervisor panel and HA add-ons.
- general installation method, which I can recommend as an alternative to the HassOS operating system installation method.
- the only supported way to run a Docker container is in the
hostnetwork asrootwith full privileges.
Hardware (examples)
- NAS Synology - smart data storage with the ability to run containers
- General x86-64 computer - with Docker installed
Basic Features
- serves to run only the HA Core application directly in Python.
- no Supervisor capabilities, and therefore no Supervisor panel and HA add-ons.
- general installation method, which is problematic to maintain and I rather do not recommend it.
If you are missing any specific hardware in the list, let me know and if it makes sense, I will be happy to add it.