Software engineer (video games). Likes dogs, DJing + EDM, running, electronics and loud bangs in Reservoir.
IMHO RPi is still a good choice for HA. SD cards are cheap enough now that you can have a spare handy with Home Assistant OS already flashed on it, then if/when your current SD card dies, just swap it out and restore HA from last backup. Only takes a few minutes and happens about as often as a hard drive dies.
All depends on how much you value separation of concerns with a proxmox setup.
I DIY’d a PIKVM from an old Raspberry Pi 4 I had lying around for use in a homelab server. It’s been great, no complaints here, very handy if you need BIOS or direct console access from a phone or laptop. I especially like that you can hook up the PC power buttons to allow hard power cycling via the web interface. Though if you’re looking for something portable you’d probably skip that part.
I did similar recently! Proxmox has been amazing, I wish I did it sooner. It’s so nice being able to spin up as many containers/VMs as I like, and spread memory/CPU/disk as needed between various appliances. I’ve found Home Assistant a little snappier as well.
Not sure how old your setup is, but if it’s like mine (6+ years old) then a lot of the old ways of doing things via yaml and config files have been moved to the web UI instead.
I’d probably just add functionality slowly and try doing it all the “easy way” first (via the UI), referring to the docs as you go. Treat it as an opportunity to explore all the cool new stuff the team have added!
Wow, thanks so much for the detailed rundown of your setup, I really appreciate it! That’s given me a lot to think about.
One area that took me by surprise a little bit with the HBA/SAS drive approach I’ve taken (and it sounds like you’re considering) is the power draw. I just built my new server PC (i5-8500T, 64GB RAM, Adaptec HBA + 8x 6TB 12GB SAS drives) and initial tests show on its own it idles at ~150W.
I’m fairly sure most of that is the HBA and drives, though I need to do a little more testing. That’s higher than I was expecting, especially since my entire previous setup (Synology 4-bay NAS + 4x SATA drives, external 8TB drive, Raspberry Pi, switch, Mikrotik router, UPS) idles at around 80W!
I’m wondering if it may have been overkill going for the SAS drives, and a proxmox cluster of lower spec machines might have been more efficient.
Food for thought anyway… I can tell this will be a setup I’m constantly tinkering with.
I’m curious why you feel these are easier to run on bare metal? I only ask as I’ve just built my first proxmox PC with the intent to run TrueNAS and Home Assistant OS as VMs, with 8x SAS enterprise drives on an HBA passed through to the TrueNAS VM.
Is it mostly about separation of concerns, or is there some other dragon awaiting me (aside from the power bills after I switch over)?
[Guide] NAS Killer 6.0 - DDR4 is finally cheap - Builds / [LGA1151,LGA1200] NAS Killer 6.0, Plex QSV Builds - serverbuilds.net Forums
https://forums.serverbuilds.net/t/guide-nas-killer-6-0-ddr4-is-finally-cheap/13956
Hopefully this resource is handy for you - I’m going through the same process at the moment.
Piggybacking off this, it’s worth noting if you’re adding SAS capability to your PC via one of these cards, you can look into used enterprise SAS HDDs for cheap. They’re often sold in bulk - I just picked up 72TB (12x6TB) of 7200RPM drives for AUD480 total. Availability is very region-specific and of course it’s up to you to decide if it’s worth the risk for your needs, but if you’re using RAID6 or equivalent (capable of handling two dead drives at once) the risk is minimal. Be sure to buy from sellers with a warranty (12 months minimum), and check the drives once they arrive. But in general enterprise drives are MUCH more resilient than consumer drives.
I cheated and just used a webscraper to pull the data from a local government website.
Here’s a screenshot of what my diagnostic interface for it looked like. The Python script took all the sensors as inputs and decided on a strategy for upstairs and downstairs, and gave the reason for its decision in a separate sensor for debugging purposes. The script performed all the necessary actions whenever it changed strategy.
I went down this rabbit hole a few years back. I’m in a house with 3 separate HVAC split systems over 2 floors, and we always had large temperature differentials and needed to constantly manage HVAC settings.
My goal was to never need to touch the settings for any of the HVAC units all year round, and I had plans to automate my windows so if it was nice outside, the house would ventilate automatically… but only if the pollen count was low, as I have allergies.
It became clear very early on that using the standard Home Assistant automation logic wasn’t going to be adequate for my needs, so I ended up running a Python script every half hour that reassessed the state of all sensors, using whatever crazy logic I dreamed up, then decided what actions to perform (if anything).
The general approach worked well, though I hit two snags and lost interest:
One was finding a (cheap) solution to physically open and close my roller windows. I came close, but didn’t want to make any permanent changes and had concerns about home insurance, so ultimately chickened out there. Everything still worked without this, but it would have been pretty cool to open windows automatically on a nice day for fresh air.
The other snag was more fundamental - I don’t think it’s possible to have a perfect temperature, even for one person. If I’m sitting still for long periods, I tend to want warmer temps. If I’m cleaning the house, I want cooler temps.
Ultimately my “ruleset” for the perfect solution became more and more complex, with edge cases and bugs popping up as the months rolled on, and it became clear I couldn’t represent this problem with a set of sensor inputs.
It was a fun experiment and I learned a lot, but I ended up going back to simpler automation rules after a while, like just turning on the heater in the morning if it’s cold, or vice versa. Solve the biggest problems first.
I think trying to automate to the extreme is sometimes a trap. Our hacker mindset wants the problem to be perfect and solveable, when in reality us humans are fickle creatures whose wants and whims change on the regular, and that can’t be captured easily in zeros and ones.
I guess as a starting point most of us in this thread don’t really know what university research teams do.
If they had a laptop or phone, what kinds of things would they want to do that requires a server? Will they need email? Instant messaging? File sharing? Document collaboration? Will there be sensitive information? Do they need specific software? Or put another way, without this server, what can’t they do?
If you can give some hints on that kind of stuff, I’m sure people in this thread can help out more with specifics on software/tech recommendations.
Edit: obviously Unreal Tournament is non-negotiable.
I think you really need to talk to the research team to find out what they want to use the server for, and how they want to collaborate. That will inform everything else.
Liquid Trees! Slam it down fast!
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/fsr-the-best-bed-occupancy-sensor/365795
This is the best write-up I’ve seen - essentially a force sensitive resistor on the bed slats and an ESP32 will get you the results you’re after.
I had a good experience with Daikin split systems, but it’s really going to depend on your region and what’s available in your area, or what you’ve already got. If you’re looking for inspiration on what works well, check the Home Assistant forums.
Best place to start would be to look at the thermostat hardware you’ve currently got, and start searching online if anyone has integrated it into Home Assistant.
I’ve lived at a few houses now with Home Assistant. In all of them I was able to integrate my HVAC and automate it, but some brands and hardware are definitely easier than others.
I think the most extreme of them required a custom esphome device connected to its PCB to talk to Home Assistant, and another required me to write my own custom component.
Hardware and brands make a huge difference, but sometimes you’re stuck with what you’ve got.
Just to play devil’s advocate, why do you want to automate your lighting? I’d consider myself an advanced HA user (been using it since 2019 and have coded several custom integrations and built custom hardware) and never bothered with automating my home lighting. I’m always walking past the light switch as I enter or exit a room anyway, so it’s not a big inconvenience.
The real wins I’ve gotten from HA are smarter home security (door locks/sensors/cameras etc), climate control, energy management, garden irrigation, and remote control of “dumb” devices like my garage door and motorised front gate.
Edit: thanks for the insights all! Seems having kids and older houses are common reasons for automating lighting.
I’m no expert but just helping you kick the tires a little bit - for the audio outs, are you thinking of just running speaker wire from an amp in the server closet to the ceiling of all of the audio out locations?
For what it’s worth, I’ve dabbled with wifi/Bluetooth speakers and while they generally work well, there always seems to be some software update or connectivity dropouts enough that I’d much prefer a wired system to eliminate over-the-air issues for a long-term robust solution.
In my experience it always goes wrong at the least opportune time. Before an important zoom call, as you’re about to leave for the airport etc. My NAS and services (especially Home Assistant) are so mission critical now that I like to have a warm backup ready to go, even if it’s a stop-gap measure.