Deep Dive of Home Assistant installations and hardware options

In this video we cover the 4 deployment models for Home Assistant, including HAOS, Container, Core, and Supervised. In addition, we cover pros and cons of baremetal installs vs VMs (VMware vSphere, Proxmox, Virtualbox) vs Docker containers, as well as answer the age-old question of x86 vs Raspberry Pi!
If you'd like to support the channel, you can do so by becoming a Patron at / fasthowto
Zigbee video: • Home Assistant and Zig...
This episode's t-shirt: amzn.to/3K1smXM
Some of my favorite home automation things:
Aqara temperature and humidity sensor (zigbee): amzn.to/3X2ubr3
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Aqara door & window sensor (zigbee): amzn.to/3Ril7N7
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Conbee II Zigbee stick: amzn.to/40pORfx
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KASA three way dimmer KS230 (wifi): amzn.to/3kQm2s8
Shelly 2.5 relay switch (wifi): amzn.to/40drGon
Honeywell T9 thermostat (wifi, homekit): amzn.to/3WOVvsD
Honeywell T9 remote zone sensor: amzn.to/3jfr5Sw
Sonoff S31 Lite smart plug (zigbee): amzn.to/3HDsb3U
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Sengled bulbs (zigbee): amzn.to/3JH95vl
August 4th generation WiFi smart lock: amzn.to/3ksXZj3
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Tripp Lite UPS: amzn.to/3M6sHJu
Tripp Lite extended runtime battery expansion: amzn.to/46DJiwC
Zooz Titan water shutoff valve: amzn.to/3slCB3v
My studio gear:
Cameras & equipment:
Canon 90D (primary and secondary cameras): amzn.to/3WOvmKz
Canon EF 24mm f/1.4 L II USM (primary lens): amzn.to/448iD8Q
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM: amzn.to/3QVqCBR
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#homeassistant
#smarthome
#smarthouse
#howto
#tutorial

[@LupusBritannica]

liked and subscribed! after 40y (count em) in IT dealing with people who don't 'do' overviews this is a great pace, not too much hocus pocus or uneccesary detail, just enough sign posts to get the info if you need, not patronising and excellent taste in t-shirts. Great stuff!

[@fasthowto]

Thank you so much for the kind words, and I'm glad you found the video useful! Man... 40 years in IT.... I'm coming up on 26 years, and I find myself wondering just how many more years I have left in me. As a consultant, I've sort of got the "golden handcuffs" thing going on, but I can always daydream about this channel getting a million subscribers so I can just teach people about home automation full-time. Lol Thanks for watching!!

[@LupusBritannica]

@@fasthowto can totally relate to that!

[@aaajp3]

Hey.! Truly the BEST video on Install types of HA I have seen to date. Thanks heaps for this - keep up the great work. Sydney Australia

[@fasthowto]

Thank you so much for the kind words. Working on editing this week's video right now, actually! Thanks for watching!

[@tunanymous]

I agree! I’m just about to start my HA journey and this indeed gave me a lot to think about! I do have intel nuc with i5 and also one with intel atom processors to choose from. By the way, does HAOS support having unifi controller and media server on it?

[@fasthowto]

Yes, you can run both of those on HAOS. I myself have a dream machine pro, but there are many other people running the unifi add on, and the media server add on is great, too. I actually just added that and am still trying to see if I prefer that or plex. My home audio stuff is constantly in a state of flux, but once it's sorted out there will be an entire video about that as well. Thanks for watching!

[@OggVorbis69]

Excelent overview, what made me to subscribe was the fact that the only thing that made you to get a help from the glass held in your hand troughout most ot the video, was the window's updates :) Just laughed and subscribed. Thanks

[@fasthowto]

LOL You know, when I was filming it and editing it, I never even noticed that. That's funny!!! Thank you for pointing that out, I got a good laugh. Thanks for watching!!

[@jayjake]

This video conviced me to go for VM installation on proxmox installed on my router. Great video!

[@fasthowto]

Awesome! Glad you found it useful. Thank you for the kind words, and thanks for watching!

[@davidprocaccini3153]

Great channel subscriber growth. Thanks for outlining all the HA options.

[@fasthowto]

You're welcome! :)

[@EdwinPWeston]

WOW, so glad I found this video and channel. A year ago I went the VM on Windows 10 route just to see if I wanted to ditch SmartThings. I was thinking... is he going to mention all the update reboots and almost wet myself when you did. So True! Needless to say, I am now looking to go the dedicated hardware route and this was very helpful. Thank you. BTW, where do I find the Domain/Count screen in HA?

[@fasthowto]

That's a card I added to my dashboard, it's not something that's built-in in stock form. I'll cover it in a future video. I'm just recovering from being CRAZY sick, and I need to finish part 3 of my Blue Iris/Deepstack series, but once that's done, I plan on doing a more in-depth video about my dashboard. I've made lots of changes and upgrades since the last dashboard video. I, for one, love watching videos about how other people have put their dashboard together, and learning more about the code behind it. Based on the number of views on my initial overview video (the Mushroom cards video), I'm not the only one, so I figure something more in-depth is something that you guys would all appreciate. Not to mention that my editing and sound mixing skills have VASTLY improved since that video was made, so hopefully I'll get less complaints on the re-do of it. :) Thanks for watching!!!

[@jeffjohnson3620]

I have a NUC11 w/ Proxmox VE, it’s loses HAOS every two days & has to be rebooted to work again. Can’t figure it out at all. I think I’m going to go to bare metal install after watching this video. Thank you!

[@best_creative_vids]

perfect insights shared here !

[@fasthowto]

Thank you, and thanks for watching!

[@AeroPR]

best vid on the topic

[@fasthowto]

Thank you for the kind words, and thanks for watching!

[@Kingeling1]

Hi, what do you think about running HA on a synology Nas? If so, which one would you recomment ?

[@fasthowto]

Honestly, I have no idea. Never owned a Synology before. Great question though, and if I do ever pick one up, I'll be sure to make a video about it. Thanks for watching!

[@JayLurk007]

Really great video! This shit has been confusing me on the different install types, this really helped spell it out. I'm fairly new to HA, I got started with it about 6 months ago by purchasing HA Green. It's been solid. I feel like I have noticed a very SLIGHT decrease in speed. Out of curiosity, since I back up my HA with Google Drive Backup Add-on, if I were to purchase a Intel NUC to set up HA, could I simply restore that HA instance with my google drive back up? or would I essentially have to start from scratch? I feel like my Zwave/Zigbee DOngles would be messed up immediately with new USB ports, but I dunno.

[@fasthowto]

Yes, your zigbee stuff would be messed up, but there is a process to migrate zigbee stuff. I've not done it before, but I've read about it. Doesn't seem too complicated, although based on reports on the forums it appears the success is mixed depending on the individual devices. Thank you for the kind words, and thanks for watching!

[@tempdemp1622]

Excellent explanation. My HA runs on a RPi4 + SSD . I have about 150+ devices, including about 40+ on Zigbee2Mqtt . I have a small fan (connected to a smart USB) which keeps the RPi CPU temperature below 107 F (42 C ) . Nabu Casa works well in remote locations and integrates well to my Alexa's. I am in the process of making a change to a Mini PC and have shortlisted a " Dell Optiplex 7040 Mini PC (Intel Core i5 6th gen, 16 GB DDR4 RAM, 512 GB SSD, Windows 11, WiFi, Intel HD Graphics|USB, Ethernet, DP) ". I plan to run HA and a Plex Server . Which path should I take with minimal interventions !! I am not from the IT discipline but have always been fascinated with technology.

[@fasthowto]

Since that is a PC, and you want to run both HA and Plex, I would guess you would want them running as two separate services? I, too, have a Plex server, but I run it on Windows. I have a second NUC here that runs BlueIris and Plex. I never was able to figure out if you could run Plex directly on HA, and if so, how to do it. I think if it were me, I would look at a system with a bit better specs, (a more recent processor with more cores), perhaps 32GB of RAM, and then either with no SSD or with a larger one (Say, 2TB - Plex can chew up some space in a hurry, so you'll want a decent buffer). Then I'd install Proxmox or something on it, and run HAOS as a VM, and run Plex in a Windows VM. For my situation, I think that's probably the route I would go. Of course, there really are no wrong answers, and someone else will be along shortly to provide their thoughts, I'm sure. Trying to solve for some of this stuff really does make you think, and the "correct" solution can be different for everyone. There are lots of "sliders" involved, including cost to acquire hardware, cost to run the hardware, heat generation (are you stuffing it into a small closet, for example, or will it have plenty of room for airflow), level of skill required to accomplish some tasks, etc etc. Getting all those sliders set at their correct position will usually result in making the choice that is correct for a given environment, and as I said - it's different for everyone. :) Be sure to come back and let us know how you chose to solve for your situation, and how those decisions ultimately worked out! I love hearing how different people solve the same problem. Thank you for the kind words, and thanks for watching!!

[@tempdemp1622]

@@fasthowto Appreciate ... I will stick to your advice ...Keep HA & Plex server on separate devices. I have an Nvidia Shield TV which has a Plex Sever integration. Simple things work😀 😀 😀

[@tolcserygergely5389]

hi, thank you for the informative videos, it helps a lot. I want to build something in my weekend house what I only visit every 2nd week, but want to monitor, the potential dangers, gasleak, fire, opend windows, doors, and strangers inside. so few sencors, and cameras is enough. As I see, follow your informations, a pre-loaded r.pie would be the best option, or maybe, a cheap retired 'office pc' they sell it pretty cheap. I want to record videos, if somebody is inside, and remote communication would be grate so maybe the pc is better - is it possible to reach a HAOS through remote control, or you need a windows machine - for example, and run HA as a VM, and reach your pc - for a daily check for example - throug some standard solution? I'm just wondering, can you redommend a full process video, or playlist, from zero, to working sencors. Thank you again, keep up the good work. I'm going through your channel, maybe find the answers there!

[@fasthowto]

Yes, you should find all the answers in videos I've made and posted already. For something like that, I would probably use a pre-loaded rpi. For cameras, I would use blue iris on a separate windows pc, which you can then integrate into home assistant. I have a couple different videos on how to make your home assistant available in the internet, and there are yet still more ways that I haven't covered (since I don't use them). You can access it via a web browser, or by using an app on your phone. Enjoy your home assistant journey, and be sure to let me know how you're doing with it! Thanks for watching!

[@tolcserygergely5389]

@@fasthowto hi, thank you, I will definitely go through these vids, and thank you for the blue iris tip. In our national smart home group, they recommended ESPHOME, I have a lot of things to check, fortunately, I am a developer - nothing to do with hardwares, or smart things, but the context of configs, codes, and digital signals not totally new and scary :)

[@fasthowto]

@@tolcserygergely5389If you're a developer, than you'll likely have an easier go of it than most other people would. I don't have any ESP32 devices - yet, but I hear they work quite well. For things such as water leak sensors and contact sensors, I use Aqara Zigbee devices. They generally work quite well. Which reminds me, I need to do a more detailed video about those. The water sensors I covered pretty well already, but I don't think I've gone into much detail about the contact sensors, and all the creative uses for them.

[@jeromewelch7409]

As a hacker, comments are cool as the programmer comments. Well, there's usually never enough time…love your Style of teaching

[@fasthowto]

Thank you so much for the kind words, and thank you for watching!! :)