Installation
Home Assistant runs on your own hardware, so your smart home keeps working even when the internet is down and your data stays at home with you. The easiest way to get started is with Home Assistant Green, a plug-and-play hub that is ready to use in about 15 minutes. If you would rather use hardware you already own, Home Assistant runs on a Raspberry Pi, a mini PC, a server, or in a virtual machine. Pick the option below that fits you best.
Plug and play with Home Assistant Green
The affordable Home Assistant Green is the easiest way to start using Home Assistant. It's plug-and-play and comes with Home Assistant Operating System already installed.
Install on a Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi, a small and affordable computer, is one of the most popular platforms for running Home Assistant. If you already have one or want to put one to use, this is a great option to get started.
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.
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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.
| HA OS1 | Container1 | |
|---|---|---|
| Automations | ||
| Dashboards | ||
| Integrations | ||
| Apps | ||
| Blueprints | ||
| One-click updates | ||
| Backups |
- Home Assistant Operating System
- Home Assistant Container
Extend with Home Assistant Yellow
The extensible Home Assistant Yellow comes with all the ingredients you need to help you build a robust smart home. All you need to do is to bring your own Raspberry Pi Compute Module.
Install on other hardware
Home Assistant can be repurposed and installed on various hardware, such as an Odroid or a generic x86-64 machine. The Home Assistant Operating System allows you to install Home Assistant on these devices even if you have little to no Linux experience.
Install Home Assistant on x86-64 machines
Repurpose workstation hardware to run Home Assistant
- You can use a command line and install a boot medium on your hardware
- You're comfortable configuring the BIOS based on instructions.
- An x86-64 machine
- Storage hard drive
- USB stick
- Ethernet connection
Install Home Assistant variants on Raspberry Pi
A low-cost DIY solution to get started with Home Assistant
- Assembling a Raspberry Pi setup
- Flashing a Raspberry Pi
- Advanced knowledge of Linux
- Using Linux command line
- Raspberry Pi 3, 4 or 5 with power supply
- microSD memory card
- Ethernet connection
