Posted: 9/8/2025 3:07:39 PM EDT
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My wife and I are looking to move farther away from the city. I had some home automation set up by a company about a year ago. They used Control4 and it has worked fine. The only thing is it was expensive and I don't understand enough about it to maintain it on my own. I don't think the tech company would be willing to drive a couple of hours to come out and take care of things without getting a hefty fee. So far the few things that have gone wrong I just had to contact them and they could remote in to fix it. But that won't always be the case. Been trying to learn how to take care of the system but it appears that it's geared towards commercial entities than for a hobbyist. I do have a contract for maintenance which includes basic updates and normal maintenance but if anything physical has to be replaced or I want to add to the system, then it's the cost of the equipment plus a hefty hourly fee. I'm thinking about setting up Home Assistant on Raspberry Pi when we finally move to our new home. I've never worked with either. Know very little about them other than it looks a bit more geared to the do it yourselfer than Control4 is. What have your experiences been? Pros vs Cons of the systems? Am I going to end up spending way more money and be way more frustrated going DIY as opposed to letting a tech company set up and maintain something like Control? Thanks in advance. |
| One of the videos I watched recommended using a “quality “ thumb drive. Is there a SSD for Raspberry Pi? I’m just starting to learn about these things. Really this is going to be a project just to give me something to do and keep my mind active. I retired about 3 years ago and started getting bored within a year. Got a part time work from home job about 2 years ago. It’s better but still too much time on my hands. This will give me something to do and possibly a new hobby. |
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What all are you looking to do with your home automation? Set your scope first and make sure you pick the right hardware to do it + growth/changes. Like simple lights, doors, sensors, voice commands, automations etc. Newer Pi's will be fine for all of that easily. Add in video, face detection, AI integrations, etc, etc. Pi will start to struggle or be completely unable to carry the load, depending. |
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Originally Posted By ScubaDachshund: One of the videos I watched recommended using a “quality “ thumb drive. Is there a SSD for Raspberry Pi? I’m just starting to learn about these things. Really this is going to be a project just to give me something to do and keep my mind active. I retired about 3 years ago and started getting bored within a year. Got a part time work from home job about 2 years ago. It’s better but still too much time on my hands. This will give me something to do and possibly a new hobby. There are plug-in adapter boards (called hats) which add NVME support. This will allow use of an SSD over burning through micro SD cards. A good site for home automation products is Ameridroid. They sell a variety of single board pc's and home automation systems and accessories. |
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Originally Posted By Skootr: What all are you looking to do with your home automation? Set your scope first and make sure you pick the right hardware to do it + growth/changes. Like simple lights, doors, sensors, voice commands, automations etc. Newer Pi's will be fine for all of that easily. Add in video, face detection, AI integrations, etc, etc. Pi will start to struggle or be completely unable to carry the load, depending. Right now my Control4 can control my my entertainment system which includes my TV, cable box, Apple TV, Blu ray player, and speakers. It also controls my A/C, alarm system, and security cameras. I’d like to add in some interior/exterior lights, ceiling fans, door locks, and garage doors. |
| I use an OrangePi 5. It has an NVME slot on the underside so it's not running on the micro SD card. I'm not using it for Home Assistant, but it does run PiHole and PiVPN without a sweat. |
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Originally Posted By ScubaDachshund: Right now my Control4 can control my my entertainment system which includes my TV, cable box, Apple TV, Blu ray player, and speakers. It also controls my A/C, alarm system, and security cameras. I’d like to add in some interior/exterior lights, ceiling fans, door locks, and garage doors. I think the Pi might be a bit weak once you add in the security camera side. Everything else the Pi should have no issues with. Start with a new Pi and slowly migrate systems over so you can get a feel for if that is how you want things to go. It will not be "push button, make go", but basic functions are pretty simple once you understand how it works. And there are a TON of guides and forums to read and ask questions on. If you find the Pi is a limiting factor, you can copy/move most HA files over to a new install on better hardware in a matter of minuets and be up and running. |
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Originally Posted By Skootr: I think the Pi might be a bit weak once you add in the security camera side. Everything else the Pi should have no issues with. Start with a new Pi and slowly migrate systems over so you can get a feel for if that is how you want things to go. It will not be "push button, make go", but basic functions are pretty simple once you understand how it works. And there are a TON of guides and forums to read and ask questions on. If you find the Pi is a limiting factor, you can copy/move most HA files over to a new install on better hardware in a matter of minuets and be up and running. I’m just starting this project so not sure how it will go. What do you mean by better hardware? What are other things I could use? Old computer? I’ve got a 2011 MBP that’s just sitting in the closet. Battery doesn’t really hold a charge anymore but it will boot up when plugged in. |
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You can run HA in several different ways. I run mine on a VM on an unraid server. You can run it on older PC hardware, on a RPi, in a docker container (will limit add-on options), etc. many paths on this. If you have an old PC sitting around, just has to be 64bit and support UEFI. That 2011 MBP should work, its about equal to a current RPi lol. But should be enough for you to tinker and see if its what you want to use. |
| Thanks for the information, Skootr. I may start it on Raspberry Pi and then move it to an old computer if I really get into it. Right now I’m in the information gathering phase to see if it looks like something I’m going to really be interested in, and have the ability to do the work. I’m going to contact the tech that set up my Control4 to see if adding Home Assistant to the network is going to cause issues. At first I’ll use it for things that Control4 doesn’t work with just to learn how things work. If/when we finally move I may switch to Home Assistant so I can maintain it . |
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Originally Posted By LonghornAR: Can't comment on HA but for the RPi, you want to use SSD as the boot drive and not a SD card. My pihole has gone through three SD cards with all the logging that it does. Only use high endurance or industrial SD cards with RPis. I am still on the same SD card for my pi hole RPi after 3 years on 24/7 use. |
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I have HA on an RPi 4b. I have daily backups going to one of my servers and I am still learning to use HA. Use RPi imager to flash HA to a high endurance or industrial SD card. https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/ |
Protecting privacy will come at a cost. Use encrypted email (Proton), messaging (Signal), and password manager (KeepassXC). Use a vetted VPN only!, Social media is mind poison.
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Tagging since I'm also looking into Home Assistant. Right now I don't have a whole lot of 'smart' in our house...roborock vac, nest thermostat, 4-5 tplink switches, garage door, and a few echos. I need to figure out what we'd really want and would use and determine if that's enough go down down the HA rabbit hole. Water leak detection and alerting, co2/smoke detection and alerting, automated or voice-controlled window blinds, stuff like that would be pretty cool and useful. If you want an SSD on a Pi, you need to get an nvme hat for it. I have a Pi5 w/ the official active cooler running pihole and other stuff with a geekworm x1001 tophat in a geekworm case. If I were to do it over again, or on any future Pi 5 builds, definitely getting the Pironman 5 case for it. I had so many pihole and pistar builds shit the bed because of the SD cards, mostly zero models, so I decided any new pi builds I'm doing won't be a pi zero and will get an nvme tophat or pironman case. |
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Originally Posted By johnny_dot_exe: If you want an SSD on a Pi, you need to get an nvme hat for it. You can go with a SATA enclosure too. My goal wasn't speed but more reliability over SD cards. I went with a Retroflag gold so it looks like I have a Zelda game cartridge sitting next to my pihole running PADD. https://www.retroflag.com/Hard-Drive-Enclosure.html |