Well…it’s been a while. I’ve been mulling on several projects, researching, taking lots of notes, watching ebay auctions for just the right pieces… One of those projects is to upgrade/overhaul my home automation. It is a disparate wasteland of many different vendors, protocols, topologies, etc. I need something to organize this mess! Enter – Home Assistant (hereinafter ‘HA’)
I’ve used HA off and on for a few years, starting on a raspberry pi (RPI), moving the installation to a virtual machine on my big bloated overkill server (more on that to come…hopefully)…that worked for a little while till it didn’t and I was looking for a better solution overall – never having been fully pleased with either of those options. I like the dedicated hardware aspect of the RPI, but I started with a RPI 3B and it just doesn’t have the horsepower to expand. Horsepower is not a concern with the behemoth server, however – passing through hardware to a virtual machine opens up a pandoras box of complexity that nobody needs; then there’s the power draw. This is supposed to make life easier…I die grass.
I’d previously come across some niche hardware for an unrelated project that found a simpler solution but I revisited them when it came to searching for a new base of operations for my HA installation. Enter – Thin Clients. If you’ve ever paid attention to the tiny box usually tucked behind a monitor at your doctors office…some banks, point of sale terminals, hospitals, corporations, etc…THAT was very likely a thin client. They are a win for businesses that need basic desktop computer access without heavy system resources that will sit largely idle 99.9% of its lifecycle, to say nothing of the cost of traditional PC’s, the cost of management/imaging, the list goes on. These will typically rely on a hefty ‘terminal’ server backend that provides the desktop environment/network access/etc, but with some magic – the server is not strictly required. As luck would have it – quite a few of these systems are coming available on sites like ebay for incredibly cheap.
For my application I landed on the Dell Wyse 5070. I found a pair of them for ~$42/ea, plus had to pickup some power supply bricks as they were not included – another $8/ea. Each system has 8gb of ram, a 16gb EMMC for storage, gigabit ethernet, multiple USB3.0, an Intel Pentium Silver J5005 1.5GHz (up to 2.8GHz)/4c/4t, bluetooth, wifi, and integrated Intel UHD Graphics 605. For $50/ea. This is overkill for HA. That is not lost on me. Buuuuuuut, hear me out. RPI’s availability has mostly bounced back finally but their price remains higher than it had been pre-covid. Even a modest upgrade to a model 4 with half as much ram (4gb) starts at $55…before the case, power supply, microsd, display adapters….started adding up quickly to the tune of around $80-100 each. My Wyse 5070 solution is more-less ready to rock out of the box. Oh, and where RPI’s are partially limited into what software/OS they can run due to the ARM processor – the 5070 has an Intel x86 chip with low TDP, support for DDR4 memory, directx, opengl, and intel’s quick sync video – which could come in handy running camera feeds into HA. Think 7th gen i3 processor. Great general purpose, not gonna be rendering any AAA games, but perfect for what I need. Best of all – CHEAP!
For now, we wait. Tracking numbers just went out earlier this afternoon with estimates of Friday 7/19/24 for delivery. In the mean time I’mma start downloading OS images. Still have to decide if I’m going to replace/upgrade my current zwave/zigbee solution or carry over the current hardware. It works but is said to be feigning in support. Said solution is a Nortek HUSBZB-1. Had originally been leaning towards the Z-Wave.Me Z-Station, a USB solution with support for the majority of the industry players – Matter, Thread, Zigbee, and Zwave, and dedicated BLE – all with external antenna connection to maximize reception. I presently only have zwave devices, no zigbee as of yet so while that is a lower priority I have been watching a few zigbee accessories with interest so I will be looking for either combo solutions or two complimentary solutions that fulfill the goal to be met without sacrificing either for the other. This was what I ultimately moved forward with. Found a Sonos Zigbee 3.0 Dongle Plus-E Gateway ($26.39 Prime Day special) and a HomeSeer SmartStick G8 Z-Wave Plus LR S2 ($39); both from Amazon. Was also tempted by a Broadlink RM4 Mini IR Blaster ($20.79) with hopes I can automate my soundbar and mini-split hvac in my office/mancave.
By my rough calculations I’m @ ~$137. I could have gone cheaper but this particular collection of hardware ‘should’ be backward compatible with my current complement of devices and carry me into the reasonably foreseeable future. With support for Thread and Matter, which is supposed to be the way forward in the home automation world, I should be well positioned to take advantage of most any new devices I might be interested in. In comparison the HomeSeer HomeTroller Pi G3 with relatively comparable complement of features – runs $144. Stepping up to their HomeTroller Plus Smart Home Hub @ $329 gets you a much stronger controller hardware upgrading from the RPI to hardware roughly comparable to what I have in the Wyse devices – but that price includes ZERO support for zwave/zigbee/thread/matter out of the box. So, yeah…I’m happy with my selections. Tomorrow things start trickling in…within the next week hopefully I’ll be posting an update with photos and setup details. *MUST remember to document this process…*
7/25/24 Update: The Wyse 5070’s, power supply, zwave and zigbee sticks all arrived. I had backed up my previous RPI installation but opted to attempt a fresh clean install. Prepared one of the 5070’s with the HAOS disk image loaded through a debian linux live usb distribution. Incredibly straightforward process, didn’t take but a few minutes to complete and I was off to the races.
The speed with which the zwave stick unpairs and pairs is ridiculous compared to my Nortek combo stick. If this is any indication of the performance I can expect from this setup – I’m not mad at it. I’m still working on getting all my integrations massaged into place properly and playing nice with one another but thus far I’m duly impressed with this setup.
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