Three boxes will run Home Assistant. Only one of them is the default in a normal South African house.
| Box | Buy it when | Skip it when |
|---|---|---|
| Home Assistant Green | You want a hub that boots and stays up | You already run cameras + local AI on one machine |
| Raspberry Pi 4/5 | You own one, and you will boot from an SSD | You think a microSD card is storage |
| Intel N100-class mini PC | Frigate / cameras / extra services | You have a geyser, a gate, and twenty lights |
Price check the Green on the shop. Around R4 499 in September 2026. A Pi “saving” disappears the moment you add a decent SSD, a case, a PSU that is not a drawer cable, and the Saturday you spend making it boot.
Green — the one we sell into most jobs
Official hardware from the Home Assistant people. Quad-core ARM, 4 GB RAM, 32 GB eMMC, gigabit ethernet. Plug in power and a cable to the router.
Why it wins here:
- No SD card to rot
- Support story is simple: it is the official box
- Quiet, small, sits next to the router on the UPS
- Enough for Sonoff, Shelly, a handful of cameras as *viewers*, dashboards, backups
Why it is not magic:
- 4 GB RAM is not a video-analysis workstation
- You still need ethernet
- You still need that UPS from the load-shedding post
If the brief is “make the house behave,” this is the box.
Raspberry Pi — only with an SSD
A Pi 5 with 8 GB and NVMe is a legitimate Home Assistant machine. A Pi 4 with a 32 GB microSD from a supermarket is a support ticket with a delay fuse.
What fails in this country is the card. Home Assistant writes constantly. Cards die. They die faster in a hot cupboard. They die during a Stage 4 bounce. Then the house has no brain and the owner says “Home Assistant is unstable.”
Rules if you insist on a Pi:
- Boot from SSD. Not optional.
- Official or known-good PSU. Phone chargers lie.
- Ethernet.
- A case that does not cook it.
- Backups on a schedule, off the box.
If any of those feels like homework, buy the Green.
Mini PC — when the job grows teeth
An N100 / N305 mini PC with 8–16 GB RAM is the right move when you want:
- Frigate or another local camera detector
- Several camera streams
- A local voice pipeline
- Other Docker junk next to Home Assistant
It costs more, uses more power, and needs a bit of Linux comfort if you do not buy it preinstalled. For a first smart home it is showing off.
We would rather see a Green doing the house, and a separate conversation about cameras, than one overloaded box that nobody can restore.
Power and heat, because this is South Africa
All three belong:
- On ethernet
- Off the floor
- On the inverter essentials or a small UPS
- Out of the geyser cupboard
A hub that reboots every time Eskom returns is worse than a dumb timer. Hardware choice does not fix a non-essential plug.
What we recommend in the shop
- First house, under ~80 devices, no camera AI → Green
- Tinkerer who already owns a Pi 5 and an SSD → Pi, with eyes open
- Cameras as a real feature → mini PC, quoted as a different job
The software philosophy is in Home Assistant in South Africa. This page is only the tin.
FAQ
Is the Green powerful enough? For lights, switches, energy, dashboards, and a sane device count, yes. For detecting people on six 4K cameras, no.
Can I move from a Green to a mini PC later? Yes. Backups exist. Start smaller. Moving is cheaper than restoring a dead SD card.
Why not a second-hand laptop? You can. People do. Then the laptop sleeps, the disk is a dying HDD, and the lid gets closed. Use a machine that is meant to stay on.
Do you stock Pis and mini PCs? The official appliance we push is the Green. Other hardware depends on stock. Ask before you assume it is on the shelf.
Does the Green work during load shedding? Same as any hub. It works if it has power. Put it on the UPS. Details in the load-shedding post.
