I’ve been making a lot of big moves in the tech world lately, firstly by switching from Windows 11 to Bazzite as my main operating system, and now, slowly starting to phase Google Assistant and Alexa out of my life. Why? Well, in favor of Home Assistant, that’s why. While Google Home and Alexa are genuinely great, I want to be more in control of my smart home.

I’ve experimented enough with different ways of running Home Assistant, either as an installation on a Linux-powered Chromebook or by utilizing my Mini-PC and Desktop as ways to run Home Assistant without any new equipment. But you know what? Life is short, and my time is valuable, so it was time to introduce a Home Assistant Green into my life. I should have done this sooner, as this little box has supercharged my smart home in no time.

Plug-and-play simplicity

I can use my Bazzite desktop as a GUI while this chills elsewhere

Credit: Shaun Cichacki/MUO

Home Assistant, while incredibly powerful, can be incredibly difficult to try to set up for a first-time user. Running it through Virtual Machines on secondary hardware or dedicating an old PC to work as a server can be a little bit too much for some users. For quite some time, I was experimenting with Home Assistant on a Linux-powered Chromebook, but even that proved more cumbersome than I had imagined. It worked well enough, but I would prefer stability over the risk of crashes or visual errors. That’s why I decided it was time to give Home Assistant Green a spin. Plus, having a dedicated GUI on my Bazzite installation with Butler makes accessing my HA dashboard easier than I could have expected.

Plus, Home Assistant Green is the perfect way to introduce someone to the Home Assistant ecosystem. All I had to do to get things up and running was plug it in, let it boot up, and then access it from a web browser. No installation, no ISOs, no tweaking system settings or running VMs that may or may not work. It just works out of the box and gives me immediate access to all the juicy bits of home automation that I’ve been searching for. Compared to even my Mini-PC, the Green runs at roughly ~3W, which is great if you’re running it 24/7.

Home Assistant has a ton of devoted fans that make it even better

In my humble opinion, open-source is the future of almost all applications. If there is a predatory subscription service that has been destroying your wallet month after month, there’s very likely a dedicated developer who has created a free version of your favorite software. I don’t think anyone should have to pay to edit or sign a PDF, and open-source creators feel the same way. But outside of creating alternative programs, there is a full community of passionate folks who make things like Home Assistant even better.

The ability to use add-ons and custom integrations, alongside things like the Home Assistant Community Store, helps flesh out what this little box can do. Plus, people who want to mess around with things like ESP32 microchip boards can also install ESPHome and have complete control over what they do, and get up-to-the-second updates if their homemade CO2 sensor captures something. Features get built because people want them and people need them. It’s not locked into a corporate-level suite that will demand that a feature we’ve been using for years suddenly gets locked behind a subscription service. Unlike Google or Amazon, everything here is available to be seen and audited by the public, so we know exactly what we’re getting into.

Local control & plenty of privacy

I don’t need to fret about my data getting used for ulterior purposes

Credit: Shaun Cichacki/MUO

While Home Assistant may require some additional TLC during the setup process to ensure it’s working properly, the security is second to none. Seeing as both Google Home and Alexa are cloud-based, everything that you do goes through an internet connection, is sent off to Google or Amazon, and they know what you’re doing, when you’re doing it. Everything that Home Assistant does, from flipping on a light to using your location, is stored securely on your device. You can sign up for something like Home Assistant Cloud, but it’s a choice that the user can make, instead of being forced into Cloud services right off the bat.

Your data stays on your device, and isn’t being sold to advertisers, it’s not being used to train AI models or build behavioral profiles about users. It’s just hanging out on your device, and nobody except you can access it. For peace of mind in that regard, Home Assistant may be exactly what privacy-minded individuals are looking for. Plus, seeing as Home Assistant is local instead of cloud-based, you can expect faster executions for automations, and automations that use local connections like Zigbee or MQTT can still work if the internet goes down.

No Wi-Fi or Bluetooth built in

One of the major flaws about the Home Assistant Green is that the final price you pay may not actually be the final price that you pay. If you’re looking to get things connected to Zigbee or Matter, you’re going to need some extra accessories. To keep costs down, Home Assistant Green doesn’t have built-in Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, so you’ll need to rely on an Ethernet connection and something like the Home Assistant Connect ZBT-2 to get your Bluetooth/Zigbee devices connected to your burgeoning home server.

With that being said, the Home Assistant Connect ZBT-2 has a massive range that it can reach. I’ve got Zigbee motion sensors attached to my washer and dryer to let me know when my laundry is done, and this reaches them with zero issues. Even my Eero/Alexa combination would sometimes drop the ball on connection, and I’ve had no such issues here. Did it take a little longer to set up? Sure, but seeing as I’m going to be working my magic through Home Assistant at this point, I’d rather have it done right.

Brand

Home Assistant

Storage

32 GB eMMC Flash

CPU

1.8 GHz

Memory

4 GB LPDDR4X

Now begins the true test of Home Assistant and what it can do

At this point, my Home Assistant setup is finally starting to feel cohesive. After messing around with what it can do, I’m already way more impressed than I have been with any other smart-home controller. And I know, as I learn more about the YAML scripts and what Home Assistant can truly do, my 1940s home is going to feel like something out of the Jetsons sooner than later. Even with the few tweaks I’ve already made, my daily schedule is already more advanced than I could have ever gotten with Google Home or Alexa.