C.1) HA: setup Home Assistant Green
Home Assistant Green “The affordable Home Assistant Green is the easiest way you can start using Home Assistant. It's plug-and-play and comes with Home Assistant already installed.”
The Home Assistant Green is a nice little device based on an ARM CPU specifically designed by the Home Assistant guys for Home Assistant itself. I only wish i had purchased it before i actually did.
Advantages i like about my Green:
- Small footprint
- Super easy setup
- Perfect hardware integration
- Top quality
- Shipped with good power adapter
- Price point is nice (a little bit more than an OrangePi 3B with same specs, plus enclosure, eMMC and power adapter)
Disadvnatages i don't like:
- Kinda ugly, and too much square sized, a bit unpractical
- Hard to find sometimes, first time i looked it was sold out
- Some shops set it overprice, i suggest you shop around.
- No WiFi and no Bluetooth, by choice to avoid EMC issues with ZigBee and similar protocols
Note: i have no affiliation whatsoever with Home Assistant, Nabu Casa or any other company related.
Setup
It's very simple: open the box, plug the ethernet cable, plug power adapter, power on, then point your browser to http://homeassistant.local:8123, or check your DHCP server and go to the IP associated on port 8123.
The rest is easy, just follow the on-screen instructions.
ZigBee adapter
I choosed to purchase also the Home Assistant sponsored Connect ZBT-1 (here). It's a very small footprint ZigBee/thread USB dongle.
I have to say that its the best ZigBee coordinator dongle i had so far, very pleased by the stability and signal quality overall. At the same price point of other branded adapters, i think it's a good device.