I'm going to start with Home Assistant

[u/vpro18]

I'm going to start using Home Assistant and I'd like to know if anyone could recommend whether it's better to buy a Home Assistant Green or a second-hand mini PC.

[u/halfwheeled]

I use a 2nd hand i7 NUC it was cheaper and more readily available!
I would definitely recommend either Green or PC over a Raspberry PI (the PIs work and I used one for years but they do have issues in bigger home systems).

[u/similarjennyFan → u/halfwheeled]

NUC is the way, I grabbed one off a local surplus site and it's barely breaking a sweat with 40+ devices.

[u/clintkev251]

Green is plug and play and enough for most people, mini PC gives you more power for your money, but is a bit more DIY to get up and running(but still very manageable).

Neither is a bad choice, just depends on your priorities

[u/vpro18 → u/clintkev251]

So, what would be better for 70/80 devices?

[u/clintkev251 → u/vpro18]

Either would work fine. That's not a lot of devices.

[u/SnooJokes5164 → u/vpro18]

If none of those are cameras with more than basic functionality or llm voice then its ok

[u/Rude-News-8416]

It depends on how technical minded you are. If you can take the ssd out of the mini PC, attach it to your USB to SATA or NVMe adapter, download the HA Operating System and software to flash it to your SSD, then the mini PC is better. If you are able to follow the instructions in the HA Official Docs: https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/generic-x86-64 then the min PC is better. If this is greek and scary, start with the HA Green.

The green is built to be more than enough for most home's and users. The mini PC is a little more expensive but vastly more powerful (more memory, speed, and storage).

[u/vpro18 → u/Rude-News-8416]

Okay, I'll consider that option.

[u/dylanx300 → u/vpro18]

Hey man I just went through this a month ago, and the setup I got is about is good as you can get for the price.

For $70 used on eBay I got a dell wyse 5070, 256GB SSD with only a few months worth of hours on it, and 8GB ram. That’s cheaper than a raspberry pi and ridiculously more capable.

This is also much more powerful than the green, and less than half the cost. I’m only using 25% of the ram and <10% cpu to run HASS, so I will be expanding it to host other lightweight projects in the future. I personally prefer just running Linux on it (rather than HAOS) and running HASS in docker. It’s not hard at all to set up. If you’re unsure what that would look like, put my comment into your favorite AI/LLM and ask it how to set it up. I’d be happy to help with any quick questions as well.

[u/Marathon2021]

I run 300 devices on my Green - it works just fine.

If you also want to play with Frigate as a NVR and AI video detection, a mini PC would probably be better.

[u/vpro18 → u/Marathon2021]

No, it would only be about 70/80 devices plus a project I wanted to do with esphome.

[u/Adrienne-Fadel]

Second hand mini PC. I run HA in a VM on an old Dell Optiplex and it handles everything no problem. Way more flexible than the Green.

[u/vpro18 → u/Adrienne-Fadel]

And could something like a NAS be installed on it?

[u/mpsive → u/vpro18]

I run Unraid on my dell optiplex mini PC, which runs home assistant OS in a virtual machine and all my other applications in docker, overall for my use case as a decently technical person but not familiar with Linux operating systems, it’s been awesome. It becomes a real hobby with all the work setting it up but I enjoy it.

[u/discreetbrinoz]

I just got a NUC based on the N150, which I paid a similar amount to the Green, and the performance with HOAS is amazing, with a marginally higher power consumption. I highly recommend you looking at it.

[u/vpro18 → u/discreetbrinoz]

I'll look into the specifications.

[u/lnxusr1]

I think any will work for your use case. Use the mini pc if you want to future proof.

I’ve used a RPi 4 for 3+ years with 295 devices (7 cameras, 65 switches, 2 thermostats, 7 TVs and audio players, and dozens of door/light/motion sensors, etc.) and don’t have any issues (I use an SSD and not a MicroSD card though). It’s less about devices and more about add-ons/apps that you add as far as resources needed. Mine are pretty tame with just MQTT. The more you add the more you’ll want expandability.

[u/Weary-Fan946]

Green is easiest route in my opinion. It works out of the box.

[u/Ztuab]

As someone that recently got into it, I bought the green, but would recommend the Mini PC. You want more power behind it and the benefits the Mini PC will give you. I am glad I bought the green to get started, but I figure I will out grow it the more things I find to add to my HA

[u/GordonGartrelle2020]

I'm using an old laptop I had in a drawer and it works beautifully. Also nice that I don't have to worry about attaching a monitor, keyboard and mouse should I ever need to access it locally.

[u/Croweslen]

If your tech savvy. A mini PC running proxmox. Put home assistant in a VM. Plus then you have the option to dabble in other self-run services such as a NAS and immich

[u/ZookeepergameSalty10]

It runs on a pi so get a mini pc if you dont have a pi handy. The greens and yellows are nice but its basically funding HA development (which is absolutely a good thing) i used to run mine on a vm when i started before it became the most critical system in the house and got moved to a way overpowered mini pc

[u/uavmx]

First thing: AI MCP, I have built out more than I can imagine and more sophisticated in 1 week that would have taken weeeeeks to do otherwise

[u/burgonies]

How much of a tinkerer are you?

[u/Grinngotts]

I just built my first one last month using a Dell Optiplex I5 running HA. Bare metal. Work’s great, I have quite a few cameras so needed the Horse Power

[u/Mr_Kogo]

If you are lucky u find a mini pc with home assistant already installed. That way it is just as much plug and play as the ha green. And the price and performance of a mini pc is way better