[kwlug-disc] Small low power server for HomeAssistant

Fri Feb 2 11:43:41 EST 2018

I just had a thought and hammer the idea of a laptop a bit more:-)
See, Reality Bytes in Elmira has some X220T tablets for less than 200
bucks/i5/4G/320G hdd) and I think one of these mounted on a wall will
afford a touchscreen interface to quickly look at stats and will not take
up too much space, about 12" x 10" I would think

https://www.realitybytescomputers.com/

As a reseller, they do the grade "B" X220T to my form for some $160, so I
think the retail is around $190-$200.

A headless solution, tucked away would be the best and very clean, but man,
the $$$ is significant.

Perhaps some old Intel NUC based on an older i3 or i5 would be perfect too
if you can find one cheap o Kijiji or Ebay.
I haven't looked at NUCs in quite a while with mostly the Atom-based units
being fanless, Mebbe the i3-32xx boards can be had fanless too.

A few years back we did some DFI mini-ITX boards with i5-520M as packet
sniffing appliances for a local client and those boards had 4 NICs,
watchdog, wireless, but no GPIO. Seems like anything fanless and with GPIO
becomes "industrial use" with an "industrial" price attached:-(

Thanks,

Ron Singh

On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 11:19 AM, Khalid Baheyeldin <kb at 2bits.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 10:27 AM, Ron Singh <ronsingh149 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Khalid, this project is very exciting! Would like to have an idea of the
>> networked devices you plan on using.
>>
>
> Home Assistant supports a huge variety of sensors and devices.
>
> Go here, and look at the list on the left, and click on each to see what
> devices are supported.
>
> https://home-assistant.io/components/
>
> Some of that is 'cloud' which I will not bother with. Also supports Alexa,
> Google Home, ..etc, which I will not touch.
>
> But they are there for those who want to go that way.
>
> One feature is using ping to check for devices that are up. Another uses
> nmap, ...etc. etc. etc.
>
> If you put in enough time (and money and/or effort) you can end up with a
> dashboard like this:
>
> http://appdaemon.readthedocs.io/en/latest/DASHBOARD_INSTALL.html
>
>
>> I wonder, despite the fact that they are not fanless, would a laptop not
>> suffice?
>>
>
> A laptop suffices from a specs point of view. But it has a fan, and a
> screen, so runs warm, and needs more ventilation, and is not really
> headless.
>
> The Zotac run off a standard 12v wall wart, which means things are more
> flexible.
>
> See, I have an X220(i5-2540M), set up as a torrent/playback PC that is
>> never turned off, it is hooked up via a DP/HDMI cable to a TV set and uses
>> a HID-compliant wireless mini keyboard(with trackpad)
>>
>> In the BIOS, I have the Intel SpeedStep feature turned off, the power
>> settings are "battery optimized" and the thermal setting is also for fan
>> optimized.
>> Essentially, this 2,4Ghz CPu spends most of it's time at 800-ish Mhz. One
>> can force it to stick around 800-ish Mhz via TLP, but I have not tried that.
>> It runs Mint-Cinnamon-18.1, essentially Ubuntu 16.04.1 with the Cinnamon
>> DE.
>> With the laptop's screen set at minimum(it is all set up in the
>> basement), the X220 uses 11 watts idling and 23 watts streaming/playing
>> back 1080P media.
>> The X220 has a slow-poke 5400rpm 750G HDD which is set for a 5 min
>> spin-down when idle.
>>
>
> Seem viable with all those tweeks and an SSD.
>
> I need to compare the watt usage of a Raspberry Pi to your 11 W.
>
>
>> Would this platform(an i5-equipped X220) or any other i3/i5 laptop be
>> appropriate for this end-use?
>> I have looked into fanless PCs in the past, based on mobile Intel chips
>> and crippled desktop chips, but they are pretty spendy with current models
>> starting at $400 and still needing RAM and storage.
>>
>
> That is where the Zotac will end up, and I don't want to spend that money.
>
>
>> I have not played yet with this tool:
>> https://01.org/powertop/downloads/powertop-v2.9
>> but it looks real promising in its ability to really fine tune some
>> powersaving features of an Intel platform.
>>
>
> I have 2.8 installed. It is in Ubuntu's repositories. apt-get install
> powertop.
>
> Played with it on the older laptop, and on this one. Basically there is a
> tab menu on top and one of them is 'Tunables'. If you go there, you can
> turn power saving per device. It can also generate for you the commands to
> turn this power saving in /sys, and you can create a script and put it in
> /etc/rc.local and it will do that for you on boot.
>
> The reason I used it was to prevent the fan from kicking in a lot, since
> it bothers me.
>
> It worked fine on my old laptop (Core 2 Duo). On the newer laptop (Core
> i5) I turned this script off for some reason that eludes me now.
>
> I did not measure any watts with any watt usage of the above.
>
> Another reason for an SBC like the Raspberry Pi, is having GPIO pins that
> can be connected to sensors (say an Arduino gateway for something or
> other). With laptops, you are limited to USB and serial.
>
>
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 2:40 PM, Khalid Baheyeldin <kb at 2bits.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Looking into home automation, I settled on Home Assistant
>>>
>>> https://home-assistant.io/
>>>
>>> This is written in Python, and there is a Raspberry Pi 3 image for it
>>> already (Hassbian, based on Raspbian, which is Debian derived).
>>>
>>> Alternate install methods do work, and I managed to get it up and
>>> running on a good old AMD server running Ubuntu 16.04 using Python venv.
>>>
>>> https://home-assistant.io/docs/installation/virtualenv/
>>>
>>> Now, I want it to be permanently hosted on its own lower power server.
>>> The Raspberry Pi 3 is an option, but I want to make sure I explore other
>>> lower power servers that run stock Debian or Ubuntu 16.04 (or 18.04 soon).
>>> The reason is: the rich repository. If you want some package, it is already
>>> there, and you are not stuck.
>>>
>>> So an Intel/AMD server is desirable.
>>>
>>> Zotac have some servers that take power from a 12v adapters, and
>>> fanless, but they will be over $300 and up after one puts a CPU and SSD
>>> disk in them. An RPi3 is ~ $100 with a case and a microSD card.
>>>
>>> There is Beagle Bone Black, and Pine64. There is also Odroid. But all
>>> these have a very small community and running Debian/Ubuntu on them with a
>>> rich repository will not be viable in the long run.
>>>
>>> So the questions are:
>>>
>>> 1. Does anyone here use Home Assistant? Would like to hear your
>>> experience with it.
>>>
>>> 2. What other options are there for low power, low footprint servers
>>> that run stock Debian/Ubuntu?
>>>
>>> --
>>> Khalid M. Baheyeldin
>>> 2bits.com, Inc.
>>> Fast Reliable Drupal
>>> Drupal optimization, development, customization and consulting.
>>> Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability. --  Edsger W.Dijkstra
>>> Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. --   Leonardo da Vinci
>>> For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and
>>> wrong." -- H.L. Mencken
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Khalid M. Baheyeldin
> 2bits.com, Inc.
> Fast Reliable Drupal
> Drupal optimization, development, customization and consulting.
> Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability. --  Edsger W.Dijkstra
> Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. --   Leonardo da Vinci
> For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and
> wrong." -- H.L. Mencken
>
> _______________________________________________
> kwlug-disc mailing list
> kwlug-disc at kwlug.org
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>
>
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