Need Community Best Advice On Pi 4 8Gb HS Install

[Bigstevep]

Background: A friend of mine ordered some Pi 4’s 8GB for a project and had an extra so he gifted it to me. I’m not a Pi guy but over this Covid down time I purchased one and have tinkered with it and got a HS Pi version running on a Pi 4 2GB. As it’s just for testing it has been running well BUT I haven’t pulled in a lot of Zwave (using dongle) devices and just use the TP Link Smart Home and mcsHubitat (again just a few devices) for testing. On my system I’m running HS4 (I can run HS3 as well) Windows 10 i7 dedicated Intel NUC so it’s fast as hell. I don’t plan on changing that but here’s where I’m at, my mothers system is running on a HS S6 (HS4 Pro) 1.5GZ. Since she only has 5 plugins running with about 60 devices and 50 events it runs fine, but would this Pi run faster than what she already has? If so my questions are:

1. If switch to the Pi just Raspbian or install Ubuntu Linux or something else
2. Since I could use her license run HS4 Pro or Pi HS4
3. I have a i3 Intel NUC laying around Windows 10 I use to run HS3 on so I could use that for her and forget the Pi
4. If I go with the Pi do I have to change (redo) the current database for devices and events
5. I have an HS Zwave GPIO hat, can I use that on the Pi4
6. Since she lives far from me I maintain her system using VNC. If I use the HS image can I add VNC (raspi-config) later or just use the Zip file to install it.

So there are my starting questions and I’m sure I’ll have more. What’s everyone’s best advice?

Thanks in advance!

[Eman]

For the HS S6, the license is is stuck with it but for self build you can transfer HS to a different machine and in all cases save your entire HomeSeer folder.
So for windows just install a new copy of HomeSeer, don't start it yet but overwrite the HomeSeer folder with the saved one. And on self build Linux take all the steps of the install and copy over the saved folder then perform the auto start steps.

To sum it all up, for all HS sold hardware the license is stuck with the device or non transferable (unless expressly stated otherwise by HomeSeer). Let me hope am right.



Eman.

[rmasonjr]

I've been running HSPro on Raspberry Pis for years. I'm on a Pi3 now and it just works with no intervention. The Pi-version of HS is limited to 5 plugins, but with HS Pro (or Std) you can run more than 5 if needed. I use a Z-Net for my controller, which is also a Pi.

I do plan on moving to a Pi4/8G when the full 64-bit OS is available, which should be any time now.

[Bigstevep]

[QUOTE=
To sum it all up, for all HS sold hardware the license is stuck with the device or non transferable (unless expressly stated otherwise by HomeSeer). Let me hope am right.
Eman.[/QUOTE]

No you change the device for the same license just not put it on two different devices or a different license owner. The S6 device my Mom has came with the HS3/HS4 license I use on my system now. If fact I ran it on the i# for awhile before moving to my i7. The one she uses on the S6 now is a license purchased and put on the S6 so a purchased license but not the original S6 license.

[Bigstevep]

I've been running HSPro on Raspberry Pis for years. I'm on a Pi3 now and it just works with no intervention. The Pi-version of HS is limited to 5 plugins, but with HS Pro (or Std) you can run more than 5 if needed. I use a Z-Net for my controller, which is also a Pi.

I do plan on moving to a Pi4/8G when the full 64-bit OS is available, which should be any time now.

The Pi4 I'm testing with is running fine but limited for testing. I too am thinking about waiting for the 64-bit OS to make use of the ram. I have tested with the SD image in my current Pi4 2GB verses the Pi4 8GB and watching them both in Webmin I really don't see any difference. Since both instances are using the 32-bit OS image the Pi4 8GB can't take advantage of the extra ram. I think it will be a big boost when it can.

[avpman]

The Pi4 I'm testing with is running fine but limited for testing. I too am thinking about waiting for the 64-bit OS to make use of the ram. I have tested with the SD image in my current Pi4 2GB verses the Pi4 8GB and watching them both in Webmin I really don't see any difference. Since both instances are using the 32-bit OS image the Pi4 8GB can't take advantage of the extra ram. I think it will be a big boost when it can.

When you all say "...when the full 64-bit OS is available." Do you mean the Raspberry O/S? If so, which build. The raspberry site doesn't specify that the download O/S available is 32bit.

AIso, what might the advantages be for 8gb of ram since the Zee HS software is limited to five plugins? I hope I am asking this the right way. Thanks!

[Bigstevep]

Well Raspberry has an experimental 64-bit balenaOS I guess out there already and there are a couple others, Gentoo, Mankato but I think I’ll wait until Raspberry has a full release.

[avpman]

What might the advantages be for 4 of 8gb of ram on a PI4 with a 64x O/S since the Zee HS software is limited to five plugins? Or, are you all thinking about using the standard Linux builds of HS?

Thanks!

[Pete]

The more RAM allows you to add more scripting in the Zee and will keep the utilization low when running up to 5 plugins.

[Guest]

You can also run nodered , so you’ll be able to have ‘’ more plugin ‘’ features like that with the help of the mcsmqtt homeseer plugin or the json api.

[Bigstevep]

What might the advantages be for 4 of 8gb of ram on a PI4 with a 64x O/S since the Zee HS software is limited to five plugins? Or, are you all thinking about using the standard Linux builds of HS?

Thanks!

Like Pete says: "The more RAM allows you to add more scripting in the Zee and will keep the utilization low when running up to 5 plugins." I might just run the Zee as I don't really care about the 5 plugin limit if I have room to move (low utilization). With scripting and some of the HS plugins (Mqtt, mcsHubitat for example) you can cover a big range of the standard HS plugins utilizing their functionality. I am considering running the standard HS Linux build as well. Just not sure what advantages that would bring over the Zee build. Sure you can run more HS plugins but like I said I can do pretty much what I want with just five plugins. That's why I'm looking for feedback.

[Pete]

Here added Mosquitto server, Home Assistant, Node Red, Oracle Virtual box to the base Zee Homeseer build. Pushing it a bit with a base of 4Gb of RAM.

[avpman]

Like Pete says: "The more RAM allows you to add more scripting in the Zee and will keep the utilization low when running up to 5 plugins." I might just run the Zee as I don't really care about the 5 plugin limit if I have room to move (low utilization). With scripting and some of the HS plugins (Mqtt, mcsHubitat for example) you can cover a big range of the standard HS plugins utilizing their functionality. I am considering running the standard HS Linux build as well. Just not sure what advantages that would bring over the Zee build. Sure you can run more HS plugins but like I said I can do pretty much what I want with just five plugins. That's why I'm looking for feedback.

Same here, I'm looking for scalability and an increase in voice response to an action from Alexa. There is a lot of cool plugins. I'd probably use more than I needed if there was room to do so. I think I'll start with the 4gb and see how it goes.

[Guest]

I am also curious to know how many plugin it could run. I guess 10-15 without recurent scripts.

To thinker about this..A good start would be to exclude any plugin that does polling a lot. Cuz from experience , that use a lot more cpu than anything else.


I know it is hard to answer since it depends on how many/complex events etc you have but just for fun?

[Bigstevep]

Here added Mosquitto server, Home Assistant, Node Red, Oracle Virtual box to the base Zee Homeseer build. Pushing it a bit with a base of 4Gb of RAM.

Wow. Are you using Webmin and if so what's it telling you about RAM, CPU etc. with all of that running?