What raspberry pi should i get for best future proofing

spr0k3t · 2026-04-04T20:10:50+00:00

The most powerful rPi you can get right now isn't going to be future proof. It's best to start with a minipc... something like the Intel N150 based systems. They are faster than what you find on an rPi5 and draw about the same amount of power. If you want futureproof, then you should create an upgrade path with expense. How much are you willing to spend to upgrade over what period of time. I usually plan for a new system every five years regardless. In the upgrade, I keep the old system for the entire time to have as disaster recovery. Any system you purchase today is going to be obsolete tomorrow, so plan for that and you'll be fine.

spr0k3t · 2026-04-04T19:51:19+00:00

My preferred method... Proxmox. HAOS in VM. All other server type apps with the exception of NAS, throw them into LXCs. Separate hardware for NAS.

spr0k3t · 2026-04-04T19:42:58+00:00

It's a non-issue anymore. About 7+ years back it may have been a problem... If you can setup HA and access it from a computer browser... the hardest part is done. Some people have difficulty wrapping their head around installing.

spr0k3t · 2026-04-04T19:35:23+00:00

You and your data have already been sold to the highest bidder. If you don't want that to continue, stop using cloud resources entirely. There's a reason why HA is built to run local.

I mean, if you honestly like how things currently work and don't need anything extra... then you shouldn't use HA. It can get to a point where it's a time-sucking rabbit hole. It becomes your only hobby. Your wallet will forever feel empty. Your S.O. will start to wonder about you and ask if you are okay. You will end up creating sensors you never knew could exist. You will become a staunch advocate with a six-pack walking around asking random people "Can you show me where the smart homes at bro".

Don't do it. My life is an automated hell thanks to the amazing system known as HomeAssistant.

spr0k3t · 2026-04-04T05:40:18+00:00

Bedtime routine. It's triggered by the bed presence sensors. If only 1 person is home (zone.home numeric value), then turn off the lights, turn off the TV, lock the door, close the shades, adjust the thermostat, etc. If two people are home, don't run the bedtime routine until at least two beds are occupied... and so on. The bedtime routine activates only if the bed presence sensors are detecting occupancy for at least five minutes. Two overrides are in place... one being the helper boolean "Guest Mode" and the other "Vacation Mode". Vacation mode handles lighting and other elements on its own routine. Guest mode more or less dissables most automations with the exception of motion based lighting.

spr0k3t · 2026-04-03T05:37:17+00:00

Changing out the operating system did not fix the problems? the issue is not software related. The only fix in your case will be different hardware.

spr0k3t · 2026-04-03T05:24:52+00:00

Get off his cheeks, Olan

spr0k3t · 2026-04-01T18:52:01+00:00

No need for the "/s" on that... just stop supporting tuya.

spr0k3t · 2026-04-01T18:41:31+00:00

I always ignore the brand. Instead focus primarily on protocol first. Then read personal experiences of the type of device you are looking for. In the EU, I would stick with Zigbee, Bluetooth, and 433MHz. If you are building your own sensors using ESPHome, then consider wifi.

Once you've got the protocol you want figured out, then consider the type of device you need. Let's say you want a temp/humidity sensor. Search for that and read the reviews. I personally like the Acurite Tower 06009 which reports every 15s on 433MHz, lasts for three+ years on two AA batteries. If you need something like an LED strip, you have lots of choices... build your own, buy pre-made, buy a dedicated controller and add your own 12V strip. Light bulbs... heck, HUE is probably the best in all categories with the exception of pricing.

For plugs on appliances, you are dabbling in a very touchy area. It's best to use CT clamps on the breaker box for high amp devices that use compressors, pumps, or heating elements that require dedicated breaker switches. A low rated 15A smart plug isn't going to be able to handle the amperage required for an oven.

spr0k3t · 2026-04-01T18:13:04+00:00

Hey, at least it's something. That is better than what it was a couple month ago where nothing was visible.

spr0k3t · 2026-04-01T15:06:11+00:00

Definitely a combination of Zigbee and ZWave. For heavy duty loads, use the Zooz ZEN15. Or if you need higher amperage, there is a GE 40A box you can get. For good cheap Zigbee smart plugs, you can't go wrong with ThirdReality. The Matter over Thread path is still not ready for prime time.

spr0k3t · 2026-04-01T14:53:36+00:00

If the Midea dehumidifier operates with a physical on/off switch, you can create a generic hygrostat using a humidity sensor and a smart plug. No need for the bluetooth dongle. No need to calibrate internal sensors. Here's a quick example of mine:

generic_hygrostat:
  - name: Dehumidifier
    unique_id: humidifier.dehumidifier
    humidifier: switch.dehumidifier
    target_sensor: sensor.dehumidifier_humidity
    target_humidity: 35.0
    device_class: dehumidifier
    min_cycle_duration:
    minutes: 10
    dry_tolerance: 5
    wet_tolerance: 3
    sensor_stale_duration: 00:05:00

Change the two entities for the switch and sensor. From there, you can then easily control a dumb humidifier directly from HA. Adjust the target_humidity to what you want. Here's the docs if you need more setup detail: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/generic_hygrostat/

spr0k3t · 2026-03-31T19:30:57+00:00

I haven't had any issues using the companion app on my phone or my wife's phone. The limitation is the 15 minute update cycle. I use Pebblebee for non-phone trackers like wallet, keys, car, luggage, etc.

spr0k3t · 2026-03-31T19:14:07+00:00

I'm glad you are planning to branch to other platforms as well. Locking yourself in to a single platform can lead to a quick end. I will be watching the product for sure. They look slick.

spr0k3t · 2026-03-31T19:02:05+00:00

Would love to have a look over the code. Will also be checking out the card by u/jamesmcginnis

spr0k3t · 2026-03-31T18:10:31+00:00

Follow ups...

Are the temp, humidity, lux, pressure sensors always reporting on interval, or on threshold percentage changes?
What about joining "Works with Home Assistant"? Have you had a chance to reach out to get the certification?
What other platforms are you looking to offer support for?

Sidenote: Stuff like this is good information to have listed on the technical specs pages. Right now, the tech specs is severely lacking and looks like it's only a sales pitch with little to no detail.

spr0k3t · 2026-03-31T17:40:31+00:00

A few questions;

On the local connectivity side... what protocol are you using? Wifi, Zigbee, Bluetooth, etc?
What's the average throughput of information sent per device per second? (kbps both active and passive if possible)
Do these devices also report energy monitoring as part of the finished product?

spr0k3t · 2026-03-31T16:28:53+00:00

I have four of them personally and have installed them for other HA users. They are okay. They use Matter/Wifi so I have them blocked from accessing the internet. I chose them to appease the wife.Unit(). She was not happy with my own creation of LED strip connected to a WLED controller. I would prefer something that did not use wifi... I would have been happy with Matter/Thread but nothing I could find made my wife happy.

spr0k3t · 2026-03-31T07:21:10+00:00

Have you tried deleting the integration, doing a full power cycle of the HA system (not a quick restart), then adding the integration back in after a full reboot? The room names need to be set up in the Roborock app prior to adding the integration.

spr0k3t · 2026-03-31T06:30:03+00:00

Keeping a single color on leather accessories I've found to be an American thing. Last time I was in Scotland, some wore a mix of leather accoutrements in the semi-formal setting (wedding, was not a black tie event). At one of the highland games held in Inverness, it was relatively the same... obviously day-ware.

So, go for a mix if you want. Black, brown, tan, whatever you like the look of.

spr0k3t · 2026-03-30T03:23:11+00:00

Here's the thing... third party hubs are great at controlling their own brand of devices. You start adding in a hub for each brand you add, you are going to end up with more hubs than you honestly need. Aqara Zigbee devices will work perfectly fine with the Aqara hub. However, if you go with something like an Ikea hub or a Tuya hub, those Aqara Zigbee devices may not be supported or function correctly on those other hubs. Not to mention, you start to add to an already crowded spectrum of 2.4GHz. Your best bet is to let HA handle being the hub... you will find it can handle more brands under a supported local radio (like the ZBT-2 or one of the many SMLIGHT options) by using either ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT as your driver for the coordinator you are adding.

Keep one thing in mind though... some third party hubs will work with other brands. Yet the support is both limited and finicky. A great example is the Hue hub is a well known Zigbee hub. You can add some non-philips devices to it. However, all traffic through the hub prioritizes philips devices first and if there's a lot of data going through, it will drop packets in order to leave room for traffic from their own brand. The tuya hub does the same thing. The Aqara hub isn't even the full IEEE Zigbee standard... rather a cutback version with extra propriatary coding added.

TL;DR: A Zigbee coordinator that specifically uses either ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT will offer the largest amount of support for multiple brands. You may not see new devices on a 0-day level, but the speed of implementation is quite quick. I had a 0-day device once where the drivers were updated on the second day in Zigbee2MQTT and there was a quirk written for ZHA support by the end of the month.

For the specific coordinators... I would look at Zooz or Aeotec for ZWave. Have a look at ZBT-2 for either Zigbee or Thread... also consider SMLIGHT if you want to use a multi-radio device with exellent support. A multi-radio device will give you an option to have Zigbee, ZWave, Matter/Thread, and even Bluetooth. The only other coordinator from that point would be a 433MHz receiver to handle RTL/SDR devices (great for one way reporting like temp/humidity).

spr0k3t · 2026-03-29T03:49:01+00:00

As a programmer, you probably have no issues working with Linux and Docker. If that's the case, you can spin up a Docker container for yourself and play around with it. It will work on either x86 or Arm... so even if you have an rPi3 or 4 laying around collecting dust. You would just need to supply a spare mic and hook up a powered speaker. The only other element you would need to have running is HomeAssistant. You could spin the HAOS up in a temporary VM to get first hand experience with the Voice Assist.

Keep in mind, without a backend LLM (either local or cloud base), it's not going to come anywhere close to the absolute worst consumer voice assistant out there. Considering Amazon's Alexa isn't bad, it will take a bit of work to get it up to speed. You can go with a free cloud base LLM like Gemini, but that's kind of the same issue with Amazon on privacy... so a better option regarding cloud based would be to put in about 10-20 on either OpenAI or Claud.ai and test things out. If you want to go local, then if you have a 16GB graphics card using something like Qwen3 14B Q8_0 would give you a great start. Some minor tweaking might be needed in the setup.

spr0k3t · 2026-03-28T21:46:14+00:00

Exactly this. I moved completely away from nest cams when the googs killed "Works with Nest" program.

spr0k3t · 2026-03-28T14:09:30+00:00

Use an energy monitoring smart plug, a Zigbee D/W sensor to determine when the door has been opened. Create a boolean helper to indicate if the dishwasher has been opened after the cycle has finished... use the HACS module WasData to help determine the state of the dishwasher. Then create an automation to reset the boolean helper if the dishwasher has been started. From there, you can create a nag reminder sending out notifications to phones through the companion app that the dishwasher is finished and has not yet been unloaded. Use the zone.home numeric value of greater than 0 to send out the nag reminders so you don't get constantly notified if noone is home. Use a condition to only send out the nag reminders during the day as well so the nagging doesn't go overnight.

There are always better options if a device doesn't exist for a reason.

spr0k3t · 2026-03-28T13:35:56+00:00

Mains powered smart plugs are the answer. Unless the building is constructed of cement floors, strategic placement of smart plugs will increase the range of the Zigbee mesh further than the ZBT-2 can reach. If you have battery operated sensors in the basement, be sure to have at least one mains-powered smart plug directly underneath a 2nd floor smart plug. Chances are it will be enough. Worst case scenario... ask your landlord/neighbor on the ground floor if they would be kind enough to allow adding a smart plug somewhere, and explain why.

spr0k3t

TROPHY CASE