If you are wondering about how to install home assistant in Raspberry Pi then, you will find all the details here about the process to do it.
Why do you need a home assistant?
As homes are becoming smart nowadays, it’s hard to manage and control various devices connected to the network.
There are many smart home products in the market and each would come with a separate app.
Initially when you start setting up your smart home, it would feel good to have separate app for each device but as time progress, we may feel tired searching for apps for each device.
Also Read: Best video doorbell in India
This would more commonly happen with people who use smart home products from different brands.
Home assistant is a system which integrates all the home automation products to a single app.
This would make it each to know the status of each app and also control it.
Installing Home Assistant on your Raspberry Pi 4 can help you consolidate and streamline your smart home ecosystem.
Before we dive into the installation process, let’s first understand what Home Assistant is and why you should consider using it.
What is Home Assistant?
As mentioned earlier, home assistant is an open source platform which will help you to integrate all smart home products into a single app.
This includes devices like lights, thermostats, cameras, robotic vacuums, Air conditioners, Wi-Fi routers, Blinds and so on.
Also Read: Best Smart Door Locks for home in India
Raspberry Pi is one of the most common device used for home assistant. This is due to the reasons mentioned below
Why to use Raspberry Pi to install Home Assistant ?
Raspberry Pi is a small computer in the size of a card, it can be easily purchased online and placed in any location of your home.
This device is used in various automation industries like robotics and manufacturing due to its low cost and efficient operation.
Raspberry Pi 4 is the latest iteration, and it is considered to be very powerful and enough to operate a complex platform like Home assistant.
Following are some advantages of installing Raspberry Pi 4 for home assistant installation.
- Cost: Raspberry Pi 4 is very affordable and easily available in the market. You can integrate any kind of operating system on it and also the setup is quite simple.
- Customizable: The Raspberry Pi 4 comes with all the needed ports like 2 USB ports, 1 LAN port and micro HDMI port. This makes it easy to use with displays and also storage devices.
- Easy Control: You can connect 3rd party devices to this device, making it easy to set up a smart home with devices from various manufacturers
Now that we have a basic idea on why to use Raspberry Pi 4 for home assistant setup. Let’s check the process for installation.
To begin with, we may need to install Raspberry Pi OS to the Raspberry Pi 4
How to install Raspberry Pi OS on Raspberry Pi 4?
Raspberry Pi OS is the most suggested and suitable OS for any Raspberry device. You can download it from the official website of Raspberry Pi.
Things you may need to install Raspberry Pi OS
- Raspberry Pi 4
- Micro SD Card (16 GB or 32 GB, preferred)
- Network connected to the Raspberry Pi 4
- Raspberry Pi Manager
Raspberry Pi Imager is a simple tool that can be used to install Raspberry Pi OS on a microSD card.
Steps to download and install the OS
- Download and install the Raspberry Pi Imager from the official website to your Windows or Mac Machine
- Insert a microSD card into your computer using a card reader or built in microSD card slot.
- Open the Raspberry Pi Imager that you have downloaded.
- Select “Raspberry Pi OS 32 or 64-bit, depending on your preference.
- Select the microSD card from the list of available storage devices.
- Click on “Write” button to start the installation process.
- Once the process is done, the OS will not be written onto the microSD card.
- Take out the microSD card from your computer and insert it into the Raspberry Pi 4.
- Connect the power cable to the Raspberry Pi 4.
- You can see the Raspberry Pi OS boot up if you have connected a monitor to the device using micro HDMI to HDMI cable.
Also Read: Tinxy Smart Door Lock Unboxing and Installation
Manual installation of Raspberry Pi OS
- Download the latest version of Raspberry Pi OS from the official website that I had shared above.
- Extract the downloaded file to get the image file in your disk
- Insert a microSD card into your computer using a card reader or slot.
- Open a terminal or command prompt based on the operating system that you are using.
- Format the microSD card.
- Use this command “sudo fdisk -l” to format the card.
- Unmount the microSD card by running the command.
- Replace the card storage name with the path of your microSD card.
- Use the following command to write the image file to the microSD card
- After the process is complete, eject the microSD card from your computer and insert it into the Raspberry Pi 4.
- Now, when you boot up your Raspberry Pi 4, it should load the OS.
How to install Home Assistant on Raspberry Pi
Now that we have installed Raspberry Pi OS on our Raspberry Pi 4, let’s check on how to install Home Assistant. There are two ways to install Home Assistant on Raspberry Pi 4:
Install Home Assistant Supervised on Raspberry Pi
Here’s how you can install Home Assistant Supervised on Raspberry Pi:
- Enable SSH access on Raspberry Pi by going to “Preferences” > “Raspberry Pi Configuration” > “Interfaces” > “SSH” and enabling SSH.
- Connect to Raspberry Pi via SSH using an SSH client such as Putty (Windows) or Terminal (macOS/Linux).
- Run the following command to install the required dependencies
sudo apt-get update
- Add the Home Assistant Supervised repository to the system by running the following command:
sudo -i
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh- Install Home Assistant Supervised using this command:
sudo -i
curl -sL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Kanga-Who/home-assistant/master/supervised-installer.sh" | bash -s- Wait for the installation process to complete. It may take a while, depending on your internet speed and the Raspberry Pi 4’s performance.
- Once the installation is complete, you can access Home Assistant by opening a web browser and navigating to http://<Raspberry Pi IP address>:8123.
You can find the Raspberry Pi address by connecting it with your computer. If you have connected it to the network, then check your router settings and find its IP.
- You may need to set up user account and configure Home Assistant accordingly.
Install Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit to Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit is a version of the OS that supports 64-bit ARM architecture.
Following are the steps to install the 64 bit version of the OS
- Download the Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit image file from the Raspberry Pi website.
- Extract the downloaded file to get the .img file.
- Insert the microSD card into your computer using card reader.
- Open a terminal window or command prompt.
- You can find the name of the microSD card by running the command “sudo fdisk -l“.
- Device name will be like /dev/sd card name.
- Unmount the microSD card using this command “sudo umount /dev/sd card name”
- Write the image file to the microSD card by running the command “sudo dd bs=4M if=/path/to/raspberry os 64bit.img of=/dev/sd card name conv=fsync”
- Once the installation is complete, eject the microSD card.
- Insert the card into Raspberry Pi 4.
- Turn on the Raspberry Pi 4, and the Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit should boot up.
Conclusion
Home assistant is a complete solution for all your smart home needs as it brings all services together in a single app.
It will make it easy to keep track of things happening around and in your house and also setup easy automations for your home.
Raspberry Pi4 is the best devices period for installing home assistant.
Hope this post helped you on how to install home assistant on Raspberry Pi easily.
If you like it, please share.
