[kwlug-disc] Small low power server for HomeAssistant

Fri Feb 2 11:57:05 EST 2018

It should, but I am evaluating the alternatives before committing to an RPi
3.

On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 11:47 AM, CrankyOldBugger <crankyoldbugger at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://kwlug.org/pipermail/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org/attachments/20180202/971fac1c/attachment.htm>