How to upgrade Home Assistant Yellow eMMC & CM4

[@jaap7374]

Looking forward to the CM5 upgrade. I asked if the CM5 would be compatible with the Yellow at a recent release party and the expectation is that it will work. A bit of caution might be in order until the CM5 is released and compatibly is confirmed.

[@BeardedTinker]

That will be a huge upgrade for Yellow - going to CM5

[@leicaman]

It is live now!

[@chrisdixon5241]

I started my Home Assistant journey from the very beginning on "big iron" (also before the team released Green or Yellow anyway) since I knew I would be need a lot of horsepower for all the things I wanted to do. However, I really like the HA all in one solution and will probably buy a Yellow, firstly to support the amazing work of the team and secondly to be a sandbox / backup to my main solution. What I would love to see from HA in the future would be to have some solution for redundancy / high availability (the other HA:)) where if my main machine failed, everything could fail over to a secondary HA instance, even if it isn't as powerful and would limit available features. I know it would be more difficult if you use a USB stick controller for Zigbee / Z-Wave, but this is also why I'm more and more considering Wifi connected devices, even if the battery life is lower, as a better approach... but Z-Wave allows for more than one coordinator so perhaps...

[@BeardedTinker]

Yellow (and to some degree Green) is great as testing device, though could be a bit expensive compared to some other mini-pc or NUC options you can get, but I consider it same as you primary as support for HA team. AFAIK - there is no expected timeline for high availability. I think that they consider recovery (through backup) as only option for now. As far as Zigbee support, even ZWave, there are really good network controllers - where you just point to IP address and get them in HA, so that's also possible to get working if they get high-availability working.

[@leicaman]

Could you do the same for upgrading CM4 to CM5? Thanks!

[@namel99]

Great Video! I've been running HA in a docker container on my Synology DS718+ for many years, would the HA Yellow with the best RP module & NVMe drive being a worthwhile upgrade do you think? if so what sort of speed gain do you think I will see? Thanks.

[@BeardedTinker]

Sorry for the late reply. It really depends. If you get 8GB version without WiF/BLE - it's a great device. But as we are about to see the RPi5 CM module, probably soon. It could be better to wait for that. But on the other hand, nobody is unsure if it will be 100% compatible. I do run Yellow with CM4 8GB and super fast NVME, but you can't get maximum speed out of the disk because of the HW limitations. I know I didn't give you a direct answer but It could be better than in VM on Synology, snappier in boot, database access etc.

[@brettautrey4117]

Do I understand correctly that the NVME installation can be done on existing Yellow that has mmc card? Or are you saying the CM4 module needs to be replaced to do this? I don't think so because you changed to NVME long before you changed to the new CM4. Thanks

[@BeardedTinker]

Yes, both of them are completely separated. I did NVME upgrade long time ago with eMMC module on CM4. If you do go that way, it will transfer data to NVME, but OS stays on eMMC (if I'm not mistaken).

[@DementedDog]

I'm rather stuck as I need to increase the ram on my yellow because it crashes whenever I try to update ESPHome devices (already increased the drive) - but I have no idea what to buy! Any pointers?

[@BeardedTinker]

I've replaced CM4 module from 2G RAM to 8GB if I'm not mistaken. My upgrade was semi-easy as I also use NVME drive for data storage. Depends on what you can get or want to get, it's really up to you. For now, there is no CM5 module, maybe you could wait a bit more since it will be much better upgrade not just in terms of RAM bur also speed/CPU. But also, as there are still no CM5 modules on market, it is currently only speculated that Yellow is compatible and we have to wait until someone tries it out.

[@DementedDog]

@@BeardedTinker I’m happy to stick with the cm4 because I need to sort this problem now. I followed your recommendation for the NVME and it worked brilliantly, but I’ve no idea what I need to buy for the ram - can you ping me a link?

[@DementedDog]

Or am I confused and need to buy a whole computer module with more ram?

[@BeardedTinker]

@@DementedDog That's right - whole CM4 module needs to be replaced. You can't just upgrade ram on it.

[@dluik]

Great vid as always, i also have a HA yellow with CM4 with wireless / Bluetooth. If i move to a CM4 module without the wireless component do i need to re-add all my zigbee / z2mqtt devices (would i need an external usb zigbee controller? Main reason I want to do this is to get rid of the built in bluetooth. Thanks again

[@BeardedTinker]

No. CM4 module has only WiFi and BT on it. Zigbee is controlled by Silicon Labs chip that's on main board, and replacing CM4 doesn't have any impact on it.

[@dluik]

@@BeardedTinker awesome - good to know. My HA yellow is POE so i dont need the Bluetooth or WiFi that is on my CM4 module. Although maybe i dont upgrade until CM5 module is released.. Not sure what benefits the CM5 will bring though - cant seem to find much info on it. Thanks again for the help / reply

[@BeardedTinker]

If nothing else, RPi5 (or CM5) should be much faster and responsive if running HA - if everything is working currently, no need to update for now!

[@peejayw]

I want to upgrade my Yellow from 2-8GB. It already has NVME installed. Will I still need to set up a boot sd for it?

[@BeardedTinker]

Yes. NVME only stores system data - OS and other things are located on the eMMC storage on Yellow. This is 99% how it's done. There are other ways too, for CM4s without eMMC, but that's not standard setup you get Yellow with.

[@peejayw]

@@BeardedTinker So will my NVME be wiped doing this?

[@BeardedTinker]

@peejayw yes, that's the simplest answer. You'll need your backup file to restore it.

[@peejayw]

@@BeardedTinker Last question, I promise 😊. After I have installed HA on the new module, do I need to set up the NVME as data storage again or will this be taken care of during the restore process? Many thanks.

[@EsotericArctos]

I found that the "flagship" model with 2GB RAM was never going to be quite enough. When I got the yellow, I got the PoE kit and got a CM4 with 4GB RAM, but I went for the LITE version with no MMC and used a 256GB NVMe drive to run it, which has been really great. I can understand why the Nabu Casa team went for a 2GB module, because of availability and cost, but I just felt it was not enough for me. I use a Zwave module as well as SkyConnect for dedicated thread radio.

[@BeardedTinker]

Same - it worked for me for some time, but started to create issues lately. Never had ESPHome compiling crash it, but that's also what can happen.

[@sevagj.b]

Thanks for the video, actually I ordered the cm5, is this video will be valid for this upgrading ?

[@BeardedTinker]

Well, if I remember the video, I think this should be very similar. HA has release special upgrade doc for CM5 module. Check it out just to be sure.

[@sevagj.b]

@ I will do, but I have to wait until I receive the cm5 after the new year 🤣 Raspberry Pi 😎😎

[@analogworm]

You mentioned when using a CM4 module with Bluetooth and Wifi you can't install a z-wave add on? Could you explain further? Or perhaps refer to some documentation about this? Are you going to talk about this aspect in your next video?

[@BeardedTinker]

Yes, I'll talk but not too much in one of next videos. The problem is that WiFi version (that has bluetooth enabled) is using the same PIN as PINs that are exposed on Yellow. Because of that I couldn't get Razberry 7 (or 7 Pro) and internal port was already occupied with BLE. You could use external USB port, but I wanted to have everything onboard and nothing sticking out of Yellow (besides power/ethernet). There is a very complicated way on how to disable onboard BLE, but it really wasn't worth it. It would require external daughter board to transfer CM4 module onto than connecting to PC, changing some config files etc.

[@analogworm]

Thanks for the reply. I didn't know this when I bought my CM4 (with Bluetooth) and yellow... But was considering getting an internal z-wave expansion board. Hmm.. guess I'll have to look into that in how to make it work.

[@youngsterjon]

​@@analogworm I currently have zwave working on my setup and I have CM4 with wifi and Bluetooth. I'm using Zooz 800 Series Z-Wave Long Range GPIO Module ZAC93 LR. It was plug and play for me, didn't have any issues

[@ronm6585]

Thank you sir. I run the Blue.

[@BeardedTinker]

Good choice Ron!

[@S-z-y-m-o-n]

Where is the video about z-wave module?

[@BeardedTinker]

Ah.... That one is not finished. had some issues with it and problem with z-wave device compatibility. Got some new z-wave devices and now just need a bit of time to finally re-record it ;)

[@YoolaxOfficialChannel]

Hi, thanks for the video💞

[@BeardedTinker]

You're welcome 😊

[@carlosgallego1076]

Thanks for the video

[@BeardedTinker]

Thanks for watching!!!

[@sevagj.b]

Thanks 🙏 😊

[@BeardedTinker]

Most welcome 😊

[@EuropaSteve]

The yellow is made from unobtainium. It's come up on a year since placing my order for the POE model.

[@EnricAragorn]

A pi4 with vitamins!

[@BeardedTinker]

Exactly that!

[@Tntdruid]

Proxmox is better tho 😄👍

[@EsotericArctos]

Depends what you want to do. If it is just a dedicated appliance, the Yellow is actually a really good option. ProxMox is good if you want multiple virtual machines or a home lab. IF you purely just want a Home Assistant hub running HAOS, then the yellow is pretty well ideal.

[@BeardedTinker]

PERMA BAN 😂

[@BeardedTinker]

True - I always say that whatever you run your HA, if it works, that's the best setup. That what Tntdruid was joking here is the reason I posted that part - people watch video on HW for beginners and say but cluster of dedicated servers is better, get it and run HA on it - each has it's own use case and scenario. Actually High Availability and HA are not supported and what HA devs always say, don't over-complicate it.

[@Tntdruid]

@@BeardedTinker 😂🥲

[@0x0081]

@@EsotericArctos every HA user eventually ends up having a home lab , lol