6 ms·

I've been using Home Assistant for a couple of years now. I won't go too much into what I use it for, there's a bunch of info about that, and the guys on the Di

I've been using Home Assistant for a couple of years now. I won't go too much into what I use it for, there's a bunch of info about that, and the guys on the Discord have entire public repos full of all their cool automations (on Github). What I would share is that in the couple of years I've been running it, I've been through a dozen Sandisk and Samsung MicroSDs on my Pis _even though_ I was running my time-series database, and my MQTT server on a separate server. Running on Raspberry Pi it's a nice toy, but when you get serious, install it on a proper box with an SSD/spinning rust. I bought a NUC-like device which is what most people will recommend to run it on, installed Arch (you can use whatever you like, Debian is probably best supported) and get going. Briefly though, I log all of the temperatures and light levels in each room of my home using Z-Wave sensors, store them in Influx and graph them in Grafana. I have my desk lamp turn on when motion is detect at or around my desk, I have my cameras start recording when nobody is home (based on location reporting from our mobiles using Owntracks back to my self-hosted MQTT server). I have hue lights in every light socket in the home so I can switch them to various moods based on motion, time of day, lux, whether the TV is on, the weather, the temperature, etc etc. The Home Assistant dashboard shows my server load in my rack , temperature in my rack (via a temperature sensor connected to an ESP8266 talking MQTT back to the server), all info on my UPS, load on various power meter wall plugs (Z-Wave) which can also be controlled on/off via HA, it shows the current temperature and light level and motion in each room via Z-Wave motion sensors. Most importantly, the community that sit on Discord are a friendly and helpful bunch so it's nice and easy to get started.

icebraining 8y ago
Were you logging to the card? I'm using a flash drive rather than an SD card, but I've mounted /var/log and /var/run on a tmpfs, then re-mounted / as readonly, and it's been running like this for years.
- monocasa 8y ago
  I've had cards fail even in RO mode. Consumer cards are shit, get "industrial" cards.
rz2k 8y ago
Does Home Assistant let you make all IOT devices safer? For example, I imagine the business plan for products like Hue involves selling information to data brokers, but after glancing at the Hue section[1], I couldn't quickly tell whether you are still publishing information about your home environment. [1] https://www.home-assistant.io/components/hue/ https://www.home-assistant.io/components/hue/
- flyingcircus3 8y ago
  The Hue does not rely on HA for network connectivity. The Hue hub connects to wifi, and you talk to it over the network. I don't believe HA is doing anything other than reading/writing the state of the bulbs.
  - gerdesj 8y ago
    Hue and company use Zigbee - you can ditch the hub: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/zigbee2mqtt-getting-rid-of-your-proprietary-zigbee-bridges-xiaomi-hue-tradfri/52108 https://community.home-assistant.io/t/zigbee2mqtt-getting-ri... (I can personally vouch for Scott Darby's ability to put together a device for UK users - see comment 162. I've got one of his)
    - OJFord 8y ago
      > see comment 162 Well, I learned something about HN today!
- ce4 8y ago
  Probably not, if they use wifi these devices can phone home or even worse - act as an insecure bridge into your network [0] or accept commands from the cloud that anyone can inject. [0]: https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/43486.html https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/43486.html
  - rovr138 8y ago
    If you’re able to talk to them via LAN they might not require internet. If so, you can block their outgoing connections.
mv4 8y ago
Have you tried using special "high endurance" SD cards on your Pi?
- monocasa 8y ago
  "Industrial" is the keyword you want for the premo shit.
abetlen 8y ago
I've heard about the problem with the RPi's constantly corrupting SD cards before. I'm curious though, did you try out any other microcomputers in the RPi's price range before upgrading to the NUCs?
wjdp 8y ago
Had a SD card die in my Pi a few months back, good to know HA was the cause. Now running on a proper box.
- monocasa 8y ago
  HA wasn't the cause, just consumer level SD cards are shit. Get an "industrial" card.
  - ce4 8y ago
    An (old/spare) 60gb ssd + usb sata adapter may come cheaper. Also very reliable.
    - monocasa 8y ago
      I've had USB->SATA adapters fail on me from not being powered down cleanly. : \
  - wjdp 8y ago
    Couldn't quite find the phrase for it. HA isn't at fault, but does cause shit SD cards — which are the norm — to fail. I was unsure if it was a random failure or attributable to my use of the card. The parent comment cleared that up for me.
    - monocasa 8y ago
      I mean, I'm not being pedantic about root cause. Like I've seen name brand cards fail while in read only mode. It has nothing to do with HA, and everything to do with the cards.
snapetom 8y ago
Man, so glad it isn't just me. I've had so many problems with my SD card corruption on my Pi/HA setup, it's ridiculous.
- monocasa 8y ago
  Get "industrial" cards if you care about them not dying.
- ce4 8y ago
  The Pi3 can boot directly off usb, alternatively just have the boot partition config (fat filesystem) on microSD point to the real rootfs on ssd/spinning hdd. I have a raspbian cups fileserver thats ignoring all this and keeps running for 3 years on the same cheap sd: have it set up to offload almost all writes to tmpfs to reduce wear: /tmp, /var/run, /var/tmp, /var/log, the cups spool folder and more (/var/spool/*). Noatime mount option.
  - CBLT 8y ago
    > /var/log mounted on tmpfs I would never do this at my job, even if I ship logs. I might do this on cheap hardware at home though. > Noatime What makes noatime better than relatime?
    - ce4 8y ago
      It's at home, an old raspberry was used as a wifi bridge for a laser printer. I basically used only spare/scrap parts. Also: s/fileserver/printserver/ though, my bad. > relatime Sits somewhere between atime and noatime, where "somewhere" is tunable. I wanted the least writes, so i went with noatime.
- jabberlope 8y ago
  I had this issue and it turned out to be fluctuations in the power source. Purchased an official RPi brick, and put the root filesystem into read-only mode and the Pi became much more resilient. (https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=161416 https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=161416)
gsich 8y ago
Network boot is possible.
hathawsh 8y ago
By contrast, I've been running Octoprint (a 3D print server) full time for over 2 years on a RPi with a 64 GB SD card and I've seen no issues with the SD card or RPi. I've been capturing camera snapshots every 15 seconds. I've only used half of the capacity of the SD card. It's possible that my use of an extra large SD card has allowed the card to write to previously-unused memory cells rather than erase and overwrite memory cells, helping the card last longer. I wonder if anyone has studied that.
- rovr138 8y ago
  There might be some wear leveling logic. When writing, it would use an area that’s written to less. SSDs have something like this. Not sure if SD cards or if it could be done on the Linux side.
avianlyric 8y ago
What hardware did you end up picking? I’ve been looking to replace my RPi with something a bit beefier. Some of the components I’m running are memory heavy, and my pi is struggling to stay responsive.
- t0mbstone 8y ago
  Honestly, raspberry pis are a joke for anything serious. They only make sense if you are extremely limited when it comes to space. You can easily buy a mid-level desktop computer for $200 (either brand new, or off ebay/craigslist/newegg). I would recommend getting an i7 with at least 8 gigs of RAM and an SSD. As of right now, newegg has no less than i7 30 desktop pcs for sale under $200. Slap linux on it, plug it into your power and ethernet under your desk and forget about it. You will have a dedicated server whatever you want. Home automation, gaming servers, docker containers, whatever. Just leave it running 24/7. If you really want to get fancy, plug it into a backup UPS for in case the power goes out.
  - maxerickson 8y ago
    How many watts is that? There's kind of a quick progression in the bill for an always on device from irrelevant to noticeable to large.
joshu 8y ago
Have you looked at high write endurance cards?
hyperbovine 8y ago
I have almost the identical setup as you - everything is ZWave (plus ecobee, sprinklers, attic fan, and some other sensors) and goes into Influx and grafana via mqtt. All of it is running on a single RPi3. Only difference is I’m using smart things not HA. I have had zero issues whatsoever. I got sidetracked for about 4 months over the winter with other projects and assumed this setup would crash or at least need a reboot when I came back to it. Instead it just hummed right along. So there must be something about the way HA uses storage.
AdamJacobMuller 8y ago
> temperatures and light levels in each room I'm curious what kind of sensors you're using and what kind of battery life you get out of them. Every z-wave sensor I tried had abysmal battery life at any kind of reasonable update rates.

icebraining 8y ago

Were you logging to the card? I'm using a flash drive rather than an SD card, but I've mounted /var/log and /var/run on a tmpfs, then re-mounted / as readonly, and it's been running like this for years.

monocasa 8y ago
I've had cards fail even in RO mode. Consumer cards are shit, get "industrial" cards.

rz2k 8y ago

Does Home Assistant let you make all IOT devices safer? For example, I imagine the business plan for products like Hue involves selling information to data brokers, but after glancing at the Hue section[1], I couldn't quickly tell whether you are still publishing information about your home environment. [1] https://www.home-assistant.io/components/hue/ https://www.home-assistant.io/components/hue/

flyingcircus3 8y ago
The Hue does not rely on HA for network connectivity. The Hue hub connects to wifi, and you talk to it over the network. I don't believe HA is doing anything other than reading/writing the state of the bulbs.
- gerdesj 8y ago
  Hue and company use Zigbee - you can ditch the hub: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/zigbee2mqtt-getting-rid-of-your-proprietary-zigbee-bridges-xiaomi-hue-tradfri/52108 https://community.home-assistant.io/t/zigbee2mqtt-getting-ri... (I can personally vouch for Scott Darby's ability to put together a device for UK users - see comment 162. I've got one of his)
  - OJFord 8y ago
    > see comment 162 Well, I learned something about HN today!
ce4 8y ago
Probably not, if they use wifi these devices can phone home or even worse - act as an insecure bridge into your network [0] or accept commands from the cloud that anyone can inject. [0]: https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/43486.html https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/43486.html
- rovr138 8y ago
  If you’re able to talk to them via LAN they might not require internet. If so, you can block their outgoing connections.

mv4 8y ago

Have you tried using special "high endurance" SD cards on your Pi?

monocasa 8y ago
"Industrial" is the keyword you want for the premo shit.

abetlen 8y ago

I've heard about the problem with the RPi's constantly corrupting SD cards before. I'm curious though, did you try out any other microcomputers in the RPi's price range before upgrading to the NUCs?

wjdp 8y ago

Had a SD card die in my Pi a few months back, good to know HA was the cause. Now running on a proper box.

monocasa 8y ago
HA wasn't the cause, just consumer level SD cards are shit. Get an "industrial" card.
- ce4 8y ago
  An (old/spare) 60gb ssd + usb sata adapter may come cheaper. Also very reliable.
  - monocasa 8y ago
    I've had USB->SATA adapters fail on me from not being powered down cleanly. : \
- wjdp 8y ago
  Couldn't quite find the phrase for it. HA isn't at fault, but does cause shit SD cards — which are the norm — to fail. I was unsure if it was a random failure or attributable to my use of the card. The parent comment cleared that up for me.
  - monocasa 8y ago
    I mean, I'm not being pedantic about root cause. Like I've seen name brand cards fail while in read only mode. It has nothing to do with HA, and everything to do with the cards.

snapetom 8y ago

Man, so glad it isn't just me. I've had so many problems with my SD card corruption on my Pi/HA setup, it's ridiculous.

monocasa 8y ago
Get "industrial" cards if you care about them not dying.
ce4 8y ago
The Pi3 can boot directly off usb, alternatively just have the boot partition config (fat filesystem) on microSD point to the real rootfs on ssd/spinning hdd. I have a raspbian cups fileserver thats ignoring all this and keeps running for 3 years on the same cheap sd: have it set up to offload almost all writes to tmpfs to reduce wear: /tmp, /var/run, /var/tmp, /var/log, the cups spool folder and more (/var/spool/*). Noatime mount option.
- CBLT 8y ago
  > /var/log mounted on tmpfs I would never do this at my job, even if I ship logs. I might do this on cheap hardware at home though. > Noatime What makes noatime better than relatime?
  - ce4 8y ago
    It's at home, an old raspberry was used as a wifi bridge for a laser printer. I basically used only spare/scrap parts. Also: s/fileserver/printserver/ though, my bad. > relatime Sits somewhere between atime and noatime, where "somewhere" is tunable. I wanted the least writes, so i went with noatime.
jabberlope 8y ago
I had this issue and it turned out to be fluctuations in the power source. Purchased an official RPi brick, and put the root filesystem into read-only mode and the Pi became much more resilient. (https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=161416 https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=161416)

gsich 8y ago

Network boot is possible.

hathawsh 8y ago

By contrast, I've been running Octoprint (a 3D print server) full time for over 2 years on a RPi with a 64 GB SD card and I've seen no issues with the SD card or RPi. I've been capturing camera snapshots every 15 seconds. I've only used half of the capacity of the SD card. It's possible that my use of an extra large SD card has allowed the card to write to previously-unused memory cells rather than erase and overwrite memory cells, helping the card last longer. I wonder if anyone has studied that.

rovr138 8y ago
There might be some wear leveling logic. When writing, it would use an area that’s written to less. SSDs have something like this. Not sure if SD cards or if it could be done on the Linux side.

avianlyric 8y ago

What hardware did you end up picking? I’ve been looking to replace my RPi with something a bit beefier. Some of the components I’m running are memory heavy, and my pi is struggling to stay responsive.

t0mbstone 8y ago
Honestly, raspberry pis are a joke for anything serious. They only make sense if you are extremely limited when it comes to space. You can easily buy a mid-level desktop computer for $200 (either brand new, or off ebay/craigslist/newegg). I would recommend getting an i7 with at least 8 gigs of RAM and an SSD. As of right now, newegg has no less than i7 30 desktop pcs for sale under $200. Slap linux on it, plug it into your power and ethernet under your desk and forget about it. You will have a dedicated server whatever you want. Home automation, gaming servers, docker containers, whatever. Just leave it running 24/7. If you really want to get fancy, plug it into a backup UPS for in case the power goes out.
- maxerickson 8y ago
  How many watts is that? There's kind of a quick progression in the bill for an always on device from irrelevant to noticeable to large.

joshu 8y ago

Have you looked at high write endurance cards?

hyperbovine 8y ago

I have almost the identical setup as you - everything is ZWave (plus ecobee, sprinklers, attic fan, and some other sensors) and goes into Influx and grafana via mqtt. All of it is running on a single RPi3. Only difference is I’m using smart things not HA. I have had zero issues whatsoever. I got sidetracked for about 4 months over the winter with other projects and assumed this setup would crash or at least need a reboot when I came back to it. Instead it just hummed right along. So there must be something about the way HA uses storage.

AdamJacobMuller 8y ago

> temperatures and light levels in each room I'm curious what kind of sensors you're using and what kind of battery life you get out of them. Every z-wave sensor I tried had abysmal battery life at any kind of reasonable update rates.