this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2026
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I'm planning to build several WiFi connected devices for home automation: an AC remote control and air quality sensors. These devices would send data and be controlled through a local server. I'm considering two approaches: running custom software on a server PC (hardware to be determined) or integrating with Home Assistant's protocols and purchasing their hardware. Would using Home Assistant be excessive for this use case?

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[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 57 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

In terms of software, yes. But HA can be run on nearly anything—there’s no need to buy their hardware to use it.

[–] i_am_not_a_robot@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Just be careful with SD cards if you're using SBCs. Home Assistant does a lot of writing and if your SD card can't handle repeated writes you may suddenly lose everything. Keep backups to another device and have a replacement SD card ready if extended downtime is going to be a problem for you.

Booting from USB drives has worked well for me

[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

You can connect an SSD to these boards and boot from that instead of an SD card. Definitely the way to go especially considering SSDs dont really cost more than SD cards.

[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Always run mine in a VM along with everything else, no need for special hardware.

Get yourself a PoE Zigbee and/or Z-wave receiver and you are good to go, can even live migrate HA if you are fancy

[–] white_nrdy@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I run mine in a VM but have USB passthrough for the Zwave and zigbee sticks. I didn't know there were POE coordinators. Do you have any you recommend? I use both zwave and zigbee

[–] speculate7383@lemmy.today 1 points 6 days ago

I haven't tried it yet, but I see the SMLIGHT SLZB06 get recommended a lot for Zigbee

[–] roofuskit@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Adding to this, I recommend a used mini PC. There's lots of cheap used office hardware out there on eBay that is more powerful, more serviceable, and more flexible than the hardware they sell or a raspberry pi.

[–] dan@upvote.au 11 points 1 week ago

Companies are throwing away old hardware (like 8th/9th gen Core i5) that's perfect for running Home Assistant. See if there's an e-waste recycler near you - they might let you buy an old system for a nominal fee.

[–] Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

While there are some problems with used minipcs (notably drivers), i don't think they are relevant if it is only going to be used as a Home Assistant

[–] Trilogy3452@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (3 children)

That's a good point. This can help me with things like adding a DNS server (I'm assuming pi-hole can be run standalone on a mini PC)

I bought a used mini PC and then set up Proxmox. This little thing is a lot more capable than the Raspberry I used before and it runs my complete home lab, excluding my NAS.

[–] roofuskit@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

If you're going to run Home Assistant OS you'd be able to run anything that can run in docker. Some things are available to install directly inside the Home Assistant apps system, otherwise you can install portainer and run any docker capable software.

[–] Buelldozer@lemmy.today 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You can also install ad guard home as an add on INSIDE Home Assistant. Works great!

[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago

Yep! While I didn’t run mine through HA, I much preferred AdGuardHome over PiHole.

[–] mhzawadi@lemmy.horwood.cloud 6 points 1 week ago

Yes I run my install on a pi5, upgraded from a pi4.