Research on https://www.minisforum.com/ and https://liliputing.com/.
this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2025
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Buy European
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Edit: somehow forgot that HA sell their own devices, HomeAssistant Green for 100$ and HomeAssistant Yellow which also supports the project.
Original comment:
Highly recommend a used "enterprise mini PC" from Dell , HP or Lenovo. Get it from your local IT refurbisher, eBay or your local ebay-equivelent.
These are sometimes called 1L PCs for their 1 Litre size. Model names are Dell Optiplex, HP Elite desk or Prodesk, Lenovo Think centre. Prices are โฌ100 to โฌ1500 depending on age and specs. โฌ150 should be more than enough for HomeAssistant.
Alternatively https://slimbook.com/en/ sells Linux PCs out of Spain, and https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/ out of Germany.
Another option is the british RaspberryPi, but that might be more hassle. You need to separately get a good power supply and cable, good SD-Card, case, maybe with fan. And its ARM not x86, but that doesn't matter for HomeAssistant unless you're doing something very exotic.
You need to separately get a good power supply and cable, good SD-Card, case, maybe with fan.
To be fair, if you're not fussy and just want to use it as a computer, you can buy all those things together as a kit. Like so:
I went with a fanless solution, the Slimbook Zero, if that fits your taste.
Oh cool, 4x 2.5G ethernet for โฌ200! These could make an awesome pfSense / openSense router.
I've seen similar boxes on AliExpress etc , but there you never know what you're getting, with model numbers and "manufacturers" all over the place. And forget about any form of support.
Ahh, the same tech lust I used to get when I saw microboards with multiple ethernet ports. pf is awesome.
Just order directly from the manufacturer: https://www.gmktec.com/products/nucbox-g3-most-cost-effective-mini-pc-with-intel-n100-processor
Have you tried looking up on AliExpress? I've got only good experiences with them. Just make sure the product is marked as "Choice", as you'll get free shipping and customs already paid.
Have you tried https://www.pccomponentes.com/ ? You could try fnac too (although I'm not sure where are they from). There's also pc box I think. You might try your luck in those
There are a lot of refurbished ex-corporate mini PCs (Intel CPU, 8-16Gb RAM, Windows 10) on eBay for around โฌ100. It should be possible to install Linux on them.
Question of curiosity: why not consider RaspberryPi for the task? It is definitely going to be cheaper and more power efficient when comparing to mini computer (even if you take new one), because has so much more computing ability per Watt. I've been running HomeAssistant + cups server + small file server on RaspberryPi 3b+ without any issues for few years, and it was pretty actively used.
Additional point, RaspberryPi is publically traded company on London Exchange, and was founded in Britain, which mostly matches the "Buy European" motto ;)
Raspberry pis are 90โฌ now instead of 30โฌ plus you need a SATA hat which is another 40-80โฌ (unless you want to start having corruption after some years), plus the power supply, another 15โฌ, that is now the price class of an Intel n100 mini PC that has 10x the power, all of that built in, and still great efficiency.
Yeah the RaspberryPi is perfect for those things. They also have Suggested hardware for that. I don't know about your country, but here in Germany electricity is expensive.
RaspberryPi + USB connected SSD would be my recommendation for HomeAssistant. Using an SSD reduces the risk of SD card flaking
And just to be clear, I boot from the SSD and donโt use an SD card at all.
Have you looked at HP elitedesk mini g5/g6?