Newbie question: picking your pi

[irie_farmer]

Hey everyone! I would like to apologize ahead of time for some noob questions. I just recently discovered the world of raspberry pi's and was blown away by the potential. However, I don't really know much of the terminology and I have picked up a couple books on the basics to try and fix that.

My question is: LEDgardener recommends a raspberry pi 4 with 4gb ram for use in his automations. What are the limitations of this level of pi vs say an 8gb ram or a smaller one?

I would like to have 4 zones. Each zone would have monitoring for temp/humidity, ph and ec of the reservoir, lighting control, and watering times.

Lastly, I have a security camera system that I know works with home assistant, so that would be cool to add.

Also, are there certain types of "smart" devices I should aim for? I have some wifi thermometers that work great and do not break the bank, so I really am not interested in building that sensor if I can get the info to home assistant. All of the things I want to accomplish are way over my head at the moment. But getting an idea if things can work before I start fiddling would be great.

Again, these are all "starry eyed newbie" ideas from a guy with little to no knowledge of this stuff. But if I know something is possible, I tend to be able to grind until I figure it out.


Thanks,

Irie Farmer

[stud]

i started with a RPI3b+ , after burning 4 SD cards , switched to SSD ,then was slowing down has i was adding entities , recently i end up and buying a used NUC i5 gen6 with 16GB RAM/120SSD for 250$cad ,now see a huge difference on the NUC , reboots in 5~10 secs . and its fast https://www.intel.ca/content/www/ca/en/ ... i5syh.html
i probably have over 30 sensors , 6 ESPHOME nodes (Xiaomi BLE:10 soil moisture +16 temp/hum. Xiaomi BLE) and 30 sonoffs tasmotized switches/dimmers (lights,baseboard heaters,fans,blowers,etc ) a ton of automations .now im working on my alarm and Atlas PH / TDS.
costed me cheaper than a new RPI4 + SSD + PSU + enclosure and i got alot more Ressources , plus only consumes 10~15 watts .

i used this Temp/humidity Sensors in all my rooms in the house with ESP32(ESPHOME).Duracell batteries last about 7~10 months .i also used xiaomi MiPlant soil moisture sensors ,now i need to order the new outdoor sensor to test .



forgot: i have a recent Hikvision camera system and i can only see my cameras in HA on H264 , not h265 . hopefully they will sort that for us soon !

[LEDG]

Nice one, stud.

The main issue with Pis is the SD card. If you are constantly writing everything to your log, it can kill the card eventually. I haven't yet had this issue, but I don't record a whole lot to mine. As stud mentioned, an SSD can fix this, or moving to a NUC, though the install may be a bit more difficult than the standard Pi install; @stud could probably verify that. I think the Pi works fine to start with though and once you get to be a baller, you can always move on to something bigger.

[irie_farmer]

Sounds like a little more ram won't hurt.

At $250 ca, that is a heck of a deal. Unfortunately, it looks like most NUC's are outside the price range for this diy project.

Thanks, again!

irie_farmer

[stud]

the guy that sold it to me got another 1 for sale,he's in Montreal area .

[stud]

Nice one, stud.

The main issue with Pis is the SD card. If you are constantly writing everything to your log, it can kill the card eventually. I haven't yet had this issue, but I don't record a whole lot to mine. As stud mentioned, an SSD can fix this, or moving to a NUC, though the install may be a bit more difficult than the standard Pi install; @stud could probably verify that. I think the Pi works fine to start with though and once you get to be a baller, you can always move on to something bigger.

i'm in a rural area and we have a lot of power surges when weather is bad .i think that's what was killing my SDs on RPI at that time .i also needed more speed so i decided to switch to SSD .
the install on a SSD is easy , there is a couple of steps extra .but you only have to do it 1 time .
and the HDD needs external power ,this was on the RPI3b+ ,if im not mistaking ,RPI4 is SSD ready .i didnt play with 1 yet .
after i installed the SSD i was still unhappy with the performance , i have a lot of stuff on my Home Assistant and reboot would take 40+ secs .
i endup turning my old gaming PC into a VMS on Proxmox and i runned 2 HA instances on it for over 2 years with no problem , i also used it for my NAS ( OMV) .
another way that i never tried is if you have a NAS with Docker ,Qnap or Synology , etc , you can also install HA .

[Shimbob]

Here's another alternative, booting an rPi from USB instead:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/booting-m ... sb-device/

[faizanmazhar00]

Hey everyone! I would like to apologize ahead of time for some noob questions. I just recently discovered the world of raspberry pi's and was blown away by the potential. However, I don't really know much of the terminology and I have picked up a couple books on the basics to try and fix that.

My question is: LEDgardener recommends a raspberry pi 4 with 4gb ram for use in his automations. What are the limitations of this level of pi vs say an 8gb ram or a smaller one?

I would like to have 4 zones. Each zone would have monitoring for temp/humidity, ph and ec of the reservoir, lighting control, and watering times.

Lastly, I have a security camera system that I know works with home assistant, so that would be cool to add.

Also, are there certain types of "smart" devices I should aim for? I have some wifi thermometers that work great and do not break the bank, so I really am not interested in building that sensor if I can get the info to home assistant. All of the things I want to accomplish are way over my head at the moment. But getting an idea if things can work before I start fiddling would be great.

Again, these are all "starry eyed newbie" ideas from a guy with little to no knowledge of this stuff. But if I know something is possible, I tend to be able to grind until I figure it out.


Thanks,

Irie Farmer

i'm in a rural area and we have a lot of power surges when weather is bad .i think that's what was killing my SDs on RPI at that time .i also needed more speed so i decided to switch to SSD.

[stud]

Im also in rural area wt lots of power outages on bad weather and also lost multiple sd cards on RPI3b+ .my new solution : Intel Nuc i5 version 6 wt 16gb ram /120gb SSD and got tons of stuff running on my HA and it's been super loyal to me for the last 1.5 year .paid 250cad used on marketplace .
To install HA on it , just flash the SSD of the NUC with the HA version of NUC , exactly the same way like you would flash a RPI , wt the Balena flashing tool . Good luck Smart Gardeners