[kwlug-disc] Small low power server for HomeAssistant

Fri Feb 2 11:47:04 EST 2018

While I can't say that I understand the requirements, but would a $50
Raspberry Pi do the trick?

On 2 February 2018 at 11:43, Ron Singh <ronsingh149 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> kwlug-disc mailing list
>>>> kwlug-disc at kwlug.org
>>>> http://kwlug.org/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> 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
>> http://kwlug.org/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> kwlug-disc mailing list
> kwlug-disc at kwlug.org
> http://kwlug.org/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://kwlug.org/pipermail/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org/attachments/20180202/f7a431d4/attachment.htm>