Home to Install Assistant on Raspberry PI | Install Hassos

Are you planning to have all your smart devices interconnected? Do you need Home Assistant to control all home automation?

In this article I will explain step by step how to install Assistant on raspberry pi 4, pi 3, pi 2, pi and pi Zero W. In this way your HUB will be active 24 / 24h and you can connect both inside the house, but also remotely.

There are various ways to install Home Assistant on any raspberry , but in order not to complicate things I will show you the simplest one.

Using the HassOS operating system it will be very easy to configure everything on your raspberry, but the latter will be dedicated exclusively to the use of Home Assistant.

Before starting make sure you have an empty microSD, a computer, a micro SD reader for your computer and an ethernet cable to connect the raspberry directly to the router or possibly a compatible external wifi antenna.

Home to Install Assistant on Raspberry PI | Install Hassos

Download the Hassio image to your computer

To get started, download the image to your computer by accessing the latest Hassos release on Github. To do thisclick hereor on the button below:

Download Hassos from Github

Now, according to the raspberry you are using, download the corresponding file in .img.xz format. After downloading it, don’t extract the content yet and move on to the next step.

Download and install BalenaEtcher on Windows, Mac or Linux

If you have not already installed other software for burning images to SD and USB sticks, I recommend BalenaEtcher, compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux. It is a fast and easy to use software and it was also the only one with which I have never had any kind of problem.

Click hereor on the button below to visit the official website of BalenaEtcher:

Download BalenaEtcher from the official website

After opening the official website, click on the green central button and then on Download. Open the downloaded file and install it as a normal program, naturally giving all the necessary permissions for reading and writing.

Burn Home Assistant image to micro SD

To install Home Assistant on raspberry pi, you need to burn the Hassos image to a microSD card through BalenaEtcher. Remember: all files on the SD will be deleted.

1. Open BalenaEtcher
2. Click on “ Flash from file ” and then immediately select the Hassos image downloaded earlier
3. Insert the microSD into the reader of the PC you are using
4. Then click on “Select Target ” and make sure you correctly select the micro SD just inserted
5. At this point, just click on the Flash button and wait for the writing to complete, the speed will vary according to the performance of the computer and the micro SD used the time.

At the end of the operation, the automatic ejection of the micro SD usually takes place, otherwise, manually eject it.

Configure Wifi connection (only if needed)

Perform this procedure before turning on the device for the first time.

If you are unable in any way to connect the raspberry pi to the router via a LAN cable and you have a Wifi USB adapter available, you can perform these simple steps to connect your raspberry to the home network.

Temporarily get a USB stick to use for configuring wifi parameters. Make sure it is formatted in FAT32 format (not exFAT).

Rename the pendrive with “CONFIG” (naturally without “”), then open it and create a new folder called ” network “. Open the folder you just created and create a new text file without extension with this name ” my-network ” and with these parameters:

[connection]
id=my-network
uuid=72111c67-4a5d-4d5c-925e-f8ee26efb3c3
type=802-11-wireless

[802-11-wireless]
mode=infrastructure
ssid=NOME_RETE
# Uncomment below if your SSID is not broadcasted
#hidden=true

[802-11-wireless-security]
auth-alg=open
key-mgmt=wpa-psk
psk=PASSWORD_WIFI

[ipv4]
method=auto

[ipv6]
addr-gen-mode=stable-privacy
method=auto

Instead of NET_NAME enter the exact name of your Wifi network and lower down, instead of PASSWORD_WIFI, the security key of your network.

Make sure you have correctly entered the SSID and Password and save the file on the USB stick. Eject the key and with the raspberry still off, insert the microSd and USB key.

In this way, at the initial boot the wifi settings will be overwritten, thus allowing the automatic connection of Home Assistant to the internet.

Start the raspberry pi

If you haven’t done so yet, insert the micro SD into the raspberry pi (also ethernet cable if you skipped the previous step) and then the power cable. This will automatically download the additional packages needed to start Home Assistant.

Wait a few minutes and then from any device type http: //homeassistant.local: 8123 in the address bar .

If this link doesn’t work, the mDNS function in your router is most likely disabled. In this case, through the router page or software such as IP SCANNER, locate the local IP of the raspberry pi and connect to the page: http: // Local_ip_address: 8123 (ex: 192.168.1.7:8123)

Fill in all the fields and choose a secure password in order to prevent potential hackers from managing your home automation remotely: it could become an extremely serious problem!

You’re finally inside the Home Assistant dashboard! Now you can start connecting your various smart devices to the HUB in order to control all accessories from a single control panel.