Installation

Ready to use out of the box

Start right away with Home Assistant Green

The affordable Home Assistant Green comes with Home Assistant Operating System already installed. Connect power and your network, and you're up and running. No assembly or flashing required.

Home Assistant Green

The easiest way to get started with Home Assistant

SKILLS REQUIRED

• Interest in setting up a smart home
• Setting up a system without a monitor or keyboard

TOOLS REQUIRED

• Ethernet connection

Get Home Assistant Green View tutorial

Build your own official hub

Build a hub with Home Assistant Yellow

Home Assistant Yellow is official, extensible hardware that you assemble before first use. You bring your own Raspberry Pi Compute Module, install it along with the heatsink, and flash the device. Once built, it gives you a robust, tinker-friendly home for Home Assistant.

Home Assistant Yellow

A capable hub you assemble with your own Compute Module

SKILLS REQUIRED

• Assembling the device (compute module and heatsink)
• Flashing the device
• Setting up a system without a monitor or keyboard

TOOLS REQUIRED

• Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4
• Ethernet connection
• USB storage drive
• Screwdriver

Get Home Assistant Yellow View tutorial

Install on hardware you already have

Bring your own hardware

Flash Home Assistant Operating System onto hardware you already own, such as a Raspberry Pi, an Odroid, or an x86-64 machine. This is the recommended installation type for most people who bring their own hardware.

Install Home Assistant on Raspberry Pi

A great option if you already have a Raspberry Pi or want to put one to use.

SKILLS REQUIRED

• Assembling a Raspberry Pi setup
• Flashing a Raspberry Pi
• Setting up a system without a monitor or keyboard

TOOLS REQUIRED

• Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 with power supply (minimum 2 GB RAM)
• microSD memory card
• Ethernet connection

Get Raspberry Pi View tutorial

Install Home Assistant on Odroid devices

A more powerful alternative to Raspberry Pi

SKILLS REQUIRED

• Writing a boot image to an SD card or eMMC
• Installing an SD card or eMMC
• Setting up a system without a monitor or keyboard

TOOLS REQUIRED

• An Odroid device
• microSD memory card or eMMC
• Ethernet connection

View tutorial

Install Home Assistant on x86-64 machines

Repurpose workstation hardware to run Home Assistant

SKILLS REQUIRED

• Writing a boot image to a USB stick
• Configuring the BIOS
• Setting up a system without a monitor or keyboard

TOOLS REQUIRED

• An x86-64 machine
• Storage hard drive
• USB stick
• Ethernet connection

View tutorial

Run in a container or virtual machine

Use a container or virtual machine

Run Home Assistant on a system you manage yourself, using Docker or a virtual machine. These options suit people who are comfortable with the command line, containers, or virtualization. Container installations use Home Assistant Container, which doesn't include appsApps are additional standalone third-party software packages that can be installed on Home Assistant OS. [Learn more].

Install Home Assistant Container on Raspberry Pi

A low-cost DIY solution to get started with Home Assistant

SKILLS REQUIRED

• Assembling a Raspberry Pi setup
• Flashing a Raspberry Pi
• Working with a headless system
• Using Docker
• Using Linux command line

TOOLS REQUIRED

• Raspberry Pi 3, 4, or 5 with power supply
• microSD memory card
• Ethernet connection

Get Raspberry Pi View tutorial

Install Home Assistant on Linux

Use Home Assistant OS, Container

SKILLS REQUIRED

• Using Linux
• Using Linux command line
• Using Docker Compose (for HA Container)

TOOLS REQUIRED

• Machine with Linux installed

View tutorial

Install Home Assistant on macOS

Use Home Assistant OS on a VM

SKILLS REQUIRED

• Setting up a virtual machine
• Using the macOS command line

TOOLS REQUIRED

• Machine with macOS installed
• Virtualization software (for VM)

View tutorial

Install Home Assistant on Windows

Use Home Assistant OS on a VM

SKILLS REQUIRED

• Setting up a virtual machine
• Using the Windows command line

TOOLS REQUIRED

• Machine with Windows installed
• Virtualization software (for VM)

View tutorial

Install Home Assistant on other systems

Use Home Assistant on virtual machines, NAS, and more

SKILLS REQUIRED

• Setting up a virtual machine or NAS app
• Finding a device's IP address on your router

TOOLS REQUIRED

• A system that can run virtual machines or containers

View tutorial

About installation types

Home Assistant offers two different installation types. Home Assistant Operating System is the recommended installation type.

• Home Assistant Operating System: An embedded, minimalistic operating system designed to run the Home Assistant ecosystem on single board computers (like the Home Assistant Green or a Raspberry Pi) or Virtual Machines. It is the most convenient option in terms of installation and maintenance and it supports appsApps are additional standalone third-party software packages that can be installed on Home Assistant OS. [Learn more]. Home Assistant Operating System is the recommended installation type for most users.
• Home Assistant Container: Container-based installation of Home Assistant. You need to bring your own system (such as Linux) with container orchestration (like Docker), and manually handle updates. Home Assistant Container installations don’t have access to appsApps are additional standalone third-party software packages that can be installed on Home Assistant OS. [Learn more].
  • Note: Some integrations, such as Thread and Z-Wave, are controlled by appsApps are additional standalone third-party software packages that can be installed on Home Assistant OS. [Learn more]. There is no out-of-the-box support for these on Container installations.