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Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

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Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#21

Post by nerdjon »

wjdp wrote: post #11
nerdjon wrote: post #7

I have to ask others, have people had good luck with this? I have tried to do this multiple times, with multiple models of Pi and every time after 6ish months it just seems to completely stop working. I can't get it to boot even off of a new sd card. Am I doing something wrong or does the hardware really not want to be run consistently in this manner? I have since decided to just run some home automation VM's on my m…

Have had the same problems, though it's always the Pi chewing up the SD card, a new card solves it. These guides really need a warning saying "If you find this useful, switch to using a server that doesn't rely on an SD card after ~6 months" The Pi is fantastic for getting a taste of self-hosting / home automation as it's so cheap but by no means should it be relied on. I moved our Home Assistant install to a docker…

I have a TV PI that seems to so far be running just fine after about 6 months. But I also have it reboot once a day so maybe that may be some magic.

I have PiHole running myself, my original plan was to use a Pi but the last thing I wanted for that thing to die and my internet stop working. An easy enough fix, but a frustrating one.

Mine is also running on the my media server. Which... is fun. When I reboot it I have to start things VM's in a certain order or things get really unhappy.

I agree that a warning like that should be in place, I am surprised though that a new card worked for you. I have a drawer of Pi's that I never managed to salvage.

Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#22

Post by OJFord »

contravariant wrote: post #17
kkielhofner wrote: post #5

Home Assistant[1] is the best approach I've found for this. It's pretty amazing but has a pretty steep learning curve (although they're getting better and better at this). The real power of HA is the rich integration ecosystem[2], the Community Store[3], and that it runs locally (more reliable and much faster for things like motion sensors, etc). It expresses everything from every integration as an entity in various…

Does anyone know how Home Assistant compares to node-red? As far as I can tell Home Assistant is better at building a dashboard of things, but node-red is better at actually automating specific actions (unless you want to grapple with HA's YAML based scripting language). Is this about right? Is it possible to combine Home Assistant and node-red, or has Home Assistant outgrown the need for something like node-red?

It is possible, and a few years ago seemed quite a trend (just going by /r/homeassistant spectating) - https://github.com/hassio-addons/addon-node-red - but I gather HA's own automation scripting has at least visualisation if not GUI programming now.

Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#23

Post by avel »

contravariant wrote: post #17
kkielhofner wrote: post #5

Home Assistant[1] is the best approach I've found for this. It's pretty amazing but has a pretty steep learning curve (although they're getting better and better at this). The real power of HA is the rich integration ecosystem[2], the Community Store[3], and that it runs locally (more reliable and much faster for things like motion sensors, etc). It expresses everything from every integration as an entity in various…

Does anyone know how Home Assistant compares to node-red? As far as I can tell Home Assistant is better at building a dashboard of things, but node-red is better at actually automating specific actions (unless you want to grapple with HA's YAML based scripting language). Is this about right? Is it possible to combine Home Assistant and node-red, or has Home Assistant outgrown the need for something like node-red?

They are not comparable because node-red is a generic low-code programming tool while HA is home automation software.

If you mean how they compare when you plug in node-red to HA and use it for automations, rather than use HA's "native" automations... I believe the consensus is that node-red is more user-friendly in that way, and because it can plug to other things on its own it can provide more flexibility. On the other hand, HA has recently worked on the UI of their automations, and it is already pretty good for simple flows. In the end both of these approaches are great, each with its own pros and cons.

Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#24

Post by nerdjon »

h2odragon wrote: post #12
nerdjon wrote: post #7

I have to ask others, have people had good luck with this? I have tried to do this multiple times, with multiple models of Pi and every time after 6ish months it just seems to completely stop working. I can't get it to boot even off of a new sd card. Am I doing something wrong or does the hardware really not want to be run consistently in this manner? I have since decided to just run some home automation VM's on my m…

I've got "TV Pis" that idle LibreELEC/Kodi most of the time and have been running for 4+ years on the same SD cards (updated them a couple times in that time, not recently). My "server Pi" is >3yo old, only turns off when the power fails, and doesn't do a lot with its SD card but the OS, but has never had an issue. What kind of power are you using? I've got these on little 2.5a wall warts; the "server" has a scrounge…

Maybe the power supply is the issue. Every time I have setup I pi I would get the Canakit sets so maybe it is just not suitable?

Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#25

Post by Nextgrid »

nerdjon wrote: post #7

I have to ask others, have people had good luck with this? I have tried to do this multiple times, with multiple models of Pi and every time after 6ish months it just seems to completely stop working. I can't get it to boot even off of a new sd card. Am I doing something wrong or does the hardware really not want to be run consistently in this manner? I have since decided to just run some home automation VM's on my m…

I have 2 and they've been running for years on the same SD cards. Maybe power or cooling is an issue? Mine use reputable USB-C adapters (the official Raspberry Pi one just because it's small, but alternatively I'd go for an Apple or Anker one) and cases with a little heatsink you can stick onto the processor.

Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#26

Post by davemtl »

kkielhofner wrote: post #5

Home Assistant[1] is the best approach I've found for this. It's pretty amazing but has a pretty steep learning curve (although they're getting better and better at this). The real power of HA is the rich integration ecosystem[2], the Community Store[3], and that it runs locally (more reliable and much faster for things like motion sensors, etc). It expresses everything from every integration as an entity in various…

I recently set-up HA on a Raspberry Pi, integrating my lights, security system and other devices. You're right about it having a steep learning curve but once it's up and running it's pretty much set and forget. With HA I'm able to use my Hue switches to toggle a TP-Link Kasa smart power outlet. It also has the added benefit of only requiring ONE application on my phone instead of nine.

Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#27

Post by alufers »

iandanforth wrote: post #18
kkielhofner wrote: post #5

Home Assistant[1] is the best approach I've found for this. It's pretty amazing but has a pretty steep learning curve (although they're getting better and better at this). The real power of HA is the rich integration ecosystem[2], the Community Store[3], and that it runs locally (more reliable and much faster for things like motion sensors, etc). It expresses everything from every integration as an entity in various…

How do you handle network security? I wouldn't trust an IoT device on the same network as any of my family's computers or phones for example.

I personally just flash everything possible with open-source software. All my light switches and Wi-Fi lightbulbs run Tasmota, which I password protect and semi- regularly update. The one odball is my Gree AC unit, which is on a separate WiFi network and subnet (I just run hostapd on my RPi since it's close-by). But it's more to protect it from the outside, not the other way, because it's controlled with JSON sent over UDP, and if you send a malformed packet the microcontroller inside crashes. When this happens and the compressor is engaged it will freeze up, possibly destroying itself and start flooding the floor, because the condensation pump won't turn on.

Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#28

Post by h2odragon »

nerdjon wrote: post #24
h2odragon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got "TV Pis" that idle LibreELEC/Kodi most of the time and have been running for 4+ years on the same SD cards (updated them a couple times in that time, not recently). My "server Pi" is >3yo old, only turns off when the power fails, and doesn't do a lot with its SD card but the OS, but has never had an issue. What kind of power are you using? I've got these on little 2.5a wall warts; the "server" has a scrounge…

Maybe the power supply is the issue. Every time I have setup I pi I would get the Canakit sets so maybe it is just not suitable?

My wall warts are mostly from canakit sets, i can't complain about them.

Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#29

Post by Nextgrid »

slothtrop wrote: post #9
kkielhofner wrote: post #5

Home Assistant[1] is the best approach I've found for this. It's pretty amazing but has a pretty steep learning curve (although they're getting better and better at this). The real power of HA is the rich integration ecosystem[2], the Community Store[3], and that it runs locally (more reliable and much faster for things like motion sensors, etc). It expresses everything from every integration as an entity in various…

I'm aiming to use a supervised installation to free up the pi for other tasks, but concerned about performance. Will be booting from SATA to help to this end, and to avoid degradation from writing to microSD often (this may be the case when I start recording security footage)

I haven't had any issues just using the stock image on an SD card - it seems to be fast enough. YMMV especially if you plan to run other things on the Pi, though in this case I'd recommend going for a mini-PC instead and just installing a standard Linux distribution on it.

Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#30

Post by slothtrop »

Nextgrid wrote: post #29
slothtrop wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aiming to use a supervised installation to free up the pi for other tasks, but concerned about performance. Will be booting from SATA to help to this end, and to avoid degradation from writing to microSD often (this may be the case when I start recording security footage)

I haven't had any issues just using the stock image on an SD card - it seems to be fast enough. YMMV especially if you plan to run other things on the Pi, though in this case I'd recommend going for a mini-PC instead and just installing a standard Linux distribution on it.

I see. Really it was just going to be something like pihole which is supposedly light. Maybe better not to use the supervised if this is focused on running HA?

In the future I'll consider the mini-PC, thanks. This will have to do for now.

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