My first foray into Home Assistant a few years back was rather uneventful. I had an old PC lying around and decided to install Home Assistant, got it running, and it detected maybe 2 or 3 devices on my local network.
I thought “hmm, that’s pretty interesting, but what can I do with it?” There it sat for a few weeks before I lost interest in trying to find a good use case for the server, and ended up shutting it down.
Since then, I have acquired a variety of smart plugs and smart bulbs, some of which work with Apple HomeKit, but some of which unfortunately require their own proprietary software. I’ve been making it work with various iOS apps and using my Apple TV as a HomeKit hub, but it’s less than ideal.
Lately, I’ve been wanting to add a smart doorbell, possibly 1 or 2 additional cameras around the outside of the house, and a smart garage door solution. However, I don’t want to get locked into more proprietary solutions and possibly subscription models.
So once again, I find myself looking into Home Assistant. With recent developments, I think I can bridge all of my existing devices and have a usable voice control solution. I’m looking into implementing a subscription-free doorbell and camera system (Reolink), and a control board for my existing Chamberlain garage door (ratgo32). Going with open solutions is always better in the long run, as companies continue to make decisions hostile to consumers when it comes to their home automation products.
There are many ways to run Home Assistant OS, from a Docker container on a Synology NAS, to a Raspberry Pi, and even some official hardware now like the HA Yellow and HA Green. I have decided to use a dedicated mini PC after reading more about performance considerations.
I found an old Intel NUC on eBay for around $50, with an i3-6100U processor, 8GB RAM, and 128GB SSD. This should be more than enough to build a system around, or so I hope. I will post more updates in the weeks to come.