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Home Assistant OS: Installation & Backup Guide

A Home Assistant OS installation is only the start: the decision that matters most is whether your Home Assistant setup survives a dead SD card, a failed SSD, or a move to new hardware. Home Assistant OS is the officially recommended full-appliance installation for most users, and it changes what an install actually looks like in practice.

As of the current release, Home Assistant OS and Home Assistant Container are the only two officially supported production installation methods for end users. Core installed directly in Python and the old Supervised method lost support with the 2025.12 release, including security updates. That matters for anyone following an older tutorial that still treats four methods as equal.

This guide covers the four install paths worth using — Home Assistant Green, Raspberry Pi, a dedicated x86-64 mini-PC, and a virtual machine — and then the encrypted backup, emergency kit, and restore workflow that turns a hardware failure into maintenance instead of a rebuild. It also covers the Zigbee, Z-Wave, and Thread coordinator decisions that older guides tend to leave out.

It is written for DIY smart-home users who want local control, privacy, and no subscriptions — whether you are setting up a first sensor network or migrating an established Home Assistant instance to new hardware.

Before You Start — The 2026 Home Assistant OS Landscape

The most important change to understand before touching hardware is which installation types are still supported.

The 32-bit i386, armhf, and armv7 builds also lost official support. If you are planning a new installation, skip old tutorials that present Core or Supervised as current options.

Home Assistant OS uses A/B boot slots for OS updates. The alternate slot is updated while the active slot keeps running, and if the new slot fails to boot, the system can fall back to the previous working slot. That improves update resilience, but it is not a backup. A boot-slot rollback does not recover config, history, add-ons, or a failed disk.

What You'll Need — A Hardware Decision, Not a Spec Race

Home Assistant itself is not demanding enough to justify chasing CPU benchmarks. The hardware choice is mostly about storage reliability, power delivery, USB coordinators, and whether the machine should run only Home Assistant or other services as well.

Your Home Assistant hardware comparison covers the broader landscape; below are the choices that matter for a reliable install.

Home Assistant Green

Home Assistant Green is the official ready-to-use appliance. It has a Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 at 1.8 GHz, 4 GB LPDDR4X RAM, 32 GB eMMC storage, Gigabit Ethernet, and two USB 2.0 Type-A ports. The HDMI port is diagnostic only, and the microSD slot is recovery-only, not normal system storage. Power is 12 V DC at 1 A, with roughly 1.7 W idle and 3 W load consumption in a fanless aluminum chassis.

Green ships with Home Assistant OS preinstalled, so there is no SD flashing, no separate PSU sourcing, and no host maintenance. It has no built-in Zigbee or Thread radio — pair it with a Connect ZBT-2 if your devices need a coordinator. The USB 2.0 ports are actually a practical advantage for 2.4 GHz coordinators because they avoid the USB 3.0 interference that can affect wireless adapters.

For a first Home Assistant setup where the goal is a low-maintenance, local-control appliance, Green is the cleanest recommendation. Its 4 GB RAM and 32 GB eMMC are ample for mainstream automation work, but power users planning Frigate-style workloads or multiple services on one box should look at a mini-PC instead.

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Home Assistant Yellow

Yellow is a carrier board for the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4. It includes an integrated Silicon Labs MGM210P radio with Zigbee 3.0 and Thread/OpenThread capability, NVMe M.2 expansion, Gigabit Ethernet, two USB 2.0 host ports, and optional PoE on the PoE variant. Power draw is roughly 1.5 W idle without NVMe and 2.5 W idle with one installed.

The important 2026 update is availability: Nabu Casa announced in October 2025 that all Yellow production would end. Existing units remain software-supported, but stock is not being replenished. Yellow still has enthusiast appeal because of its integrated radio, CM4 socket, optional PoE, and NVMe support. For a new purchase, though, Green is simpler and a mini-PC offers more flexibility, especially as Yellow + CM4 stock becomes scarce.

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Raspberry Pi 5, Pi 4, and Pi 3

The current official Home Assistant installation guidance lists the Raspberry Pi 4 and Pi 5, with a minimum of 2 GB RAM, microSD storage, and Ethernet. A Pi 3 B+ remains usable for an existing small installation, but it is no longer the recommended new-install platform.

• Raspberry Pi 5 8 GB: Broadcom BCM2712, 2.4 GHz quad-core Cortex-A76, LPDDR4X-4267, dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0/BLE, Gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports, PCIe 2.0 x1, and 5 V / 5 A USB-C power. For a Home Assistant-only appliance, the 4 GB Pi 5 is already enough; 8 GB mainly makes sense if the board will later be repurposed or if the price difference is small. Check Price on Amazon

• Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 4 GB: Broadcom BCM2711, quad Cortex-A72 at 1.8 GHz, LPDDR4-3200, Gigabit Ethernet, dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports, microSD boot, and 5 V USB-C with an official minimum of 3 A. Raspberry Pi currently lists the Pi 4 for production through at least January 2034. A 4 GB Pi 4 is still an excellent HAOS platform if you already own one. Check Price on Amazon

• Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+: Broadcom BCM2837B0, 1.4 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53, 1 GB LPDDR2, Gigabit Ethernet via USB 2.0 with a 300 Mbps ceiling, and 5 V / 2.5 A micro-USB. It remains in production, but the 1 GB RAM ceiling and older architecture leave less headroom for a growing integration list. It is a fine migration source, not a strong new-purchase recommendation. Check Price on Amazon

For any Pi build, power is a first-class requirement. Home Assistant explicitly warns that smartphone chargers and PC USB ports may not provide the sustained current the board needs. Use a proper power supply, not whatever USB charger is nearby.

N100-Class Mini-PC

A dedicated x86-64 mini-PC avoids the microSD wear problem entirely and gives far more headroom for databases, add-ons, and future repurposing. The representative N100 configuration is a Beelink MINI S12 Pro with an Intel Alder Lake-N N100, four cores at up to 3.4 GHz, 16 GB DDR4-3200, a 500 GB SATA SSD, M.2 2280 NVMe/SATA expansion, Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6, and Bluetooth 5.2.

For Home Assistant alone, an N100 with 16 GB is significant overkill, but the complete package often overlaps the cost of a full Raspberry Pi bundle while removing the microSD reliability question. For a dedicated local-control hub, run Home Assistant OS bare-metal on the mini-PC. For a homelab that also runs Frigate, Pi-hole, a NAS, or other services, install Proxmox first and run HAOS as a VM.

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Storage: microSD vs SSD

The recurring Pi failure pattern is not that every SD card dies quickly. The real issue is that an always-on, database-writing Home Assistant install exposes weak cards, undervoltage, and power failures. A good endurance card plus off-device backups is the defensible baseline; an SSD usually improves endurance and responsiveness, but it creates a new failure surface.

• SanDisk High Endurance 64 GB microSDXC (SDSQQNR-064G-GN6IA): U3, V30, up to 100 MB/s read and 40 MB/s write, with an endurance rating aimed at repeated writes. Its datasheet does not advertise an A2 Application Performance Class, so do not treat it as an A2 card — its value is write endurance. Check Price on Amazon

• Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield 1 TB (MU-PE1T0S/AM): USB 3.2 Gen 2, up to 1,050 MB/s read and 1,000 MB/s write, IP65, drop resistance up to 3 m under Samsung test conditions, and hardware AES-256 encryption. It is far faster and larger than HAOS needs, but it is a recognizable rugged example. USB storage reliability depends on the bridge chipset, cable, PSU, and USB 3.0 interference as much as the drive itself. Check Price on Amazon

The rule is not "replace SD with any SSD." It is: good storage plus a known-good USB bridge plus a proper PSU plus automated off-device backups. The backup is what converts a disk failure from a catastrophe into routine maintenance.

Zigbee, Thread, and Z-Wave Coordinators

A Home Assistant OS box needs a radio adapter if you plan to use Zigbee, Thread, or Z-Wave devices directly. The current first-party options and the leading third-party alternative are:

• Home Assistant Connect ZBT-2: the current official Zigbee/Thread USB coordinator. It uses a Silicon Labs MG24 radio SoC with an ESP32-S3 USB bridge, USB-C, 5 V / 500 mA, and a baud rate of 460800. It supports Zigbee 3.0 or Thread, but not both simultaneously on one adapter. It ships with a 1.5 m USB-C cable. For a new setup, this is the cleanest official recommendation. Check Price on Amazon

• Home Assistant Connect ZBT-1 / SkyConnect: the previous official adapter, built on the Silicon Labs EFR32MG21. ZBT-1 is the same hardware as SkyConnect. It is superseded but still fully functional; owners of a healthy ZBT-1 mesh do not need to replace it solely because ZBT-2 exists.

• SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus (ZBDongle-P): a proven third-party Zigbee-only coordinator using the Texas Instruments CC2652P and a CP2102(N) USB bridge, pre-flashed with Z-Stack 3.x. It supports ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT and transmits at up to +20 dBm. It is a strong budget/mid option when price matters more than first-party hardware integration. Check Price on Amazon

Keep any 2.4 GHz coordinator away from USB 3.0 devices, SSDs, and Wi-Fi-heavy hardware. A shielded USB extension cable is the standard recommendation, and SONOFF also documents extension use in its own support material. If you plan to use Z-Wave Long Range or Z-Wave 800-series devices, see the Zigbee vs Z-Wave vs Matter comparison before choosing a radio.

Install Path 1 — Home Assistant Green

Green has no flashing step. If you want the shortest path from unboxing to a running local hub:

1. Connect the included Ethernet cable to your router or switch.
2. Connect power.
3. Let Home Assistant OS complete its first boot.
4. Open a browser to the hostname or IP address assigned by your router. The router's client list will show the address if the hostname does not resolve.
5. Complete onboarding, create a local account, and optionally restore a backup from the onboarding screen.

Green ships with HAOS preinstalled, so there is no Raspberry Pi Imager, no Balena Etcher, and no SD card installation. The included PSU removes the power-supply guesswork that affects many Pi builds.

Install Path 2 — Raspberry Pi with Raspberry Pi Imager

The current official method uses Raspberry Pi Imager, not the older Balena Etcher + manual image download flow. The steps are:

1. Install and open Raspberry Pi Imager on your computer.
2. Select the Raspberry Pi model you are using.
3. Choose Home Assistant OS from the home-automation or dedicated Home Assistant section, and select the image that matches your exact Pi model.
4. Select the target microSD card. The write will erase the entire card.
5. Write the image and accept the full erase prompt.
6. Eject the SD card cleanly and insert it into the Raspberry Pi.
7. Connect Ethernet.
8. Connect a proper Raspberry Pi power supply. Phone chargers or PC USB ports may not supply the required current.
9. Let HAOS complete its first boot.
10. Open the interface via the hostname or the router-assigned IP address. The :8123 port remains the fallback when needed, but current documentation no longer treats the old homeassistant.local:8123 pattern as the only access method.

Install Path 3 — Generic x86-64 Mini PC

Home Assistant OS on x86-64 is not a traditional installer that copies files. You write the HAOS disk image directly to the target drive. The official first-choice method uses an Ubuntu Live USB when the target disk is internal and not easily removable.

1. Verify the machine is 64-bit Intel or AMD and supports UEFI.
2. In BIOS/UEFI, enable UEFI and disable Secure Boot if it interferes with booting HAOS.
3. Prepare an Ubuntu Live USB of at least 8 GB.
4. Boot the target machine into Ubuntu's "Try Ubuntu" live environment. Do not install Ubuntu onto the destination disk.
5. From the live environment, download the official Generic x86-64 HAOS .img.xz image.
6. Open the Disks utility.
7. Carefully select the internal disk that will run HAOS. This step destroys the existing contents of that disk.
8. Use the restore-disk-image function to write the HAOS image to the selected disk.
9. Shut down Ubuntu and remove the USB stick.
10. Boot from the HAOS disk.
11. Keep Ethernet connected and complete onboarding from a browser.

If the Ubuntu Live method is not suitable, the fallback is to write the HAOS image directly to the target disk from another computer using a USB-to-SATA or USB-to-NVMe adapter. HAOS installed bare-metal takes the entire machine. If you want the same mini-PC to also run Frigate, Pi-hole, or a NAS, a Proxmox VM is the more logical architecture.

Install Path 4 — Virtual Machine

Home Assistant provides official .vdi, .qcow2, and .ova images. The documented minimum is 2 GB RAM and 2 vCPU.

VirtualBox

1. Download and decompress the official Home Assistant OS .vdi.
2. In VirtualBox, create a new VM named Home Assistant.
3. Do not select an ISO.
4. Set the OS type to Linux, using Oracle Linux 64-bit where the current procedure requires it.
5. Assign at least 2048 MB RAM and 2 CPUs.
6. Enable EFI/UEFI.
7. Create the VM, remove the empty default disk if one was created, and attach the HAOS .vdi as the VM disk.
8. Set the network adapter to Bridged Adapter and choose the physical network interface.
9. Start the VM and let HAOS boot.
10. Give any USB coordinator explicit passthrough access to the VM through the hypervisor's USB settings.

Proxmox

Home Assistant supplies the KVM/Proxmox .qcow2 image officially, but does not maintain a Proxmox GUI walkthrough as detailed as the VirtualBox one. The following is the standard manual flow using the official image:

1. Install Proxmox VE and enable CPU virtualization in the BIOS.
2. Download and decompress the official HAOS .qcow2.
3. Create a VM without installation media.
4. Use UEFI/OVMF as the BIOS type.
5. Assign at least 2 vCPU and 2 GB RAM. A 4 GB allocation is a common comfortable choice when multiple add-ons run.
6. Place the VM on a bridge LAN, typically vmbr0 in a standard Proxmox setup.
7. Import the .qcow2 into Proxmox storage.
8. Attach the imported disk to the VM and set it first in the boot order.
9. Start HAOS and retrieve its IP address.
10. If the VM needs a Zigbee or Z-Wave USB dongle, add it under VM → Hardware → Add → USB Device.
11. Optionally restore a Home Assistant backup from the onboarding screen.

A community-maintained Proxmox HAOS script also exists, which can automate downloading the official image, importing it, attaching the disk, and setting the boot order with defaults of 4 GB RAM, 32 GB disk, and 2 vCPU. It is useful, but it is not an official Home Assistant procedure — treat it as a community option rather than the recommended path.

The Backup Workflow That Actually Works

A backup stored on the same failing SSD or SD card is not a recovery strategy. The core rule is: keep backups off the device, keep at least one off-site copy, and keep the encryption key with the backups.

Automatic Backup Configuration

1. Go to Settings → System → Backups.
2. Configure automatic backups, typically daily for a hub where automations, history, and devices change regularly.
3. Download the backup emergency kit immediately and store it outside the Home Assistant system.
4. Choose a backup destination on a different physical device — NAS, second machine, or cloud storage — not the same drive Home Assistant boots from.
5. Add an off-site copy: encrypted cloud backup, replicated NAS, or an encrypted removable drive stored elsewhere.

A full Home Assistant OS backup can include configuration, add-ons and their data, shared folders, SSL certificates, and media depending on the options selected. Large media or share folders dramatically increase creation and restore time; exclude them if they already have their own backup strategy.

Current Encryption: SecureTar v3

Since Home Assistant 2026.4, new encrypted backups use SecureTar v3:

• Argon2id for key derivation;
• XChaCha20-Poly1305 authenticated encryption via libsodium secretstream;
• A 256-bit key;
• Trail of Bits audited the implementation, with three findings resolved before deployment.

Older v1 and v2 encrypted backups using the previous AES-128 format remain readable. When reading newer documentation, be aware that some pages may still reference AES-128 for cloud backups; the SecureTar v3 announcement describes the current behavior for newly created encrypted backups after Home Assistant 2026.4.

Emergency Kit

The emergency kit contains the encryption key and restoration information. It must live outside Home Assistant. If you rotate the encryption key, old backups still require the old key. If an encrypted backup survives but its key is lost and the old instance is no longer reachable, Home Assistant states that the backup cannot be restored. Nabu Casa does not retain user backup keys and cannot recover them.

Encryption plus key handling is the single most important recovery skill. Treat the encrypted .tar and its matching emergency key as a pair.

How to Restore a Backup — Same Hardware and Migration

Home Assistant supports restore as a migration mechanism across different hardware. You do not need to manually rebuild integrations and dashboards.

Restore to the Same System

1. Go to Settings → System → Backups.
2. Select the backup.
3. Choose the elements to restore.
4. Enter the encryption key if prompted.
5. Start Restore.
6. Wait for the full reboot without refreshing.

Restore to Different Hardware

1. On the old system, update Home Assistant if reasonable.
2. Create a fresh full backup.
3. Export the backup off the machine.
4. Confirm the matching emergency kit and key are available.
5. Prepare Home Assistant OS on the new hardware.
6. If possible, connect the same USB Zigbee or Z-Wave coordinator to the new system before restoring.
7. At the onboarding screen, choose restore from backup.
8. Load the file or select the compatible backup location.
9. Enter the key.
10. Start Restore and do not refresh the page while it runs.
11. After restart, log in with credentials from the old system, not a newly created fresh account.
12. Verify integrations, network storage, radios, and unavailable devices.
13. If the new hardware has a different built-in Zigbee radio, perform the appropriate radio migration after the restore.

Restore Failure Matrix

Zigbee, Z-Wave, and Thread After a Migration

Restoring Home Assistant does not change the identity of a physical radio. A Zigbee network has exactly one coordinator, and a restored backup does not magically convert a new USB stick into your old coordinator. The least disruptive migration is to keep the same coordinator.

If you must switch coordinators — for example from a legacy ZBT-1 to a new ZBT-2, or from a Pi's integrated radio to a USB dongle — use the migration tools built into ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT before relying on the new radio. More detail is in the best Zigbee coordinators guide and the Zigbee2MQTT setup guide.

For new installs, Connect ZBT-2 is the current official recommendation when you need a coordinator. SONOFF's ZBDongle-P remains a proven budget alternative for Zigbee-only setups. Both should be used with a USB extension cable and kept away from USB 3.0 devices. Thread and Matter-over-Thread devices have their own commissioning and border-router requirements; start with the Home Assistant Matter integration guide if you plan to mix protocols.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Treating Core or Supervised as current. Both lost support with the 2025.12 release. Use Home Assistant OS or Home Assistant Container.
• Booting a Pi with a phone charger. Undersized power causes disk corruption, poor USB coordinator behavior, and random crashes.
• Writing the x86 HAOS image to the wrong disk. The direct image restore is destructive and takes the entire machine.
• Sizing migration hardware from the compressed .tar file. The compressed backup size does not reflect the actual used storage you need on the destination.
• Refreshing the browser during restore. "Not found" during restore is expected because Home Assistant is being shut down, wiped, and restored.
• Treating a Proxmox snapshot as a replacement for backup. Snapshots are great before an upgrade, but they remain tied to the hypervisor and storage. A Home Assistant backup can move to entirely different hardware.
• Assuming any USB SSD fixes reliability. A low-quality USB-to-SATA bridge, bad cable, undervoltage, or USB 3.0 interference can create new disconnect problems.
• Leaving backups only on the same SD card or SSD. The backup dies with the drive. Keep a copy on another device and one off-site.
• Losing the emergency kit. An encrypted backup without its key cannot be restored. Old backups still need their old key after key rotation.
• Expecting Zigbee devices to follow a restore automatically. If the radio changes, the coordinator identity changes. Keep the old coordinator or perform a formal radio migration.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Home Assistant OS is the right default for a local-control smart-home hub: it includes Core, Supervisor, and add-ons, supports A/B boot-slot updates, and removes most Linux administration from the daily workflow. The install path should match your tolerance for maintenance — Green for appliance simplicity, Pi for an existing or budget-aware setup, a mini-PC for storage reliability and headroom, and Proxmox only when you already manage a homelab.

The backup strategy is the part most people get wrong. A daily encrypted backup stored only on the same SD card is not a disaster-recovery plan. Home Assistant's built-in backup, the emergency kit, and an off-device destination are what make a failed disk recoverable in an afternoon instead of a multi-day rebuild. The current SecureTar v3 encryption — Argon2id with XChaCha20-Poly1305 — is designed for exactly that purpose, and the old v1/v2 backups remain readable.

For a first install, Home Assistant Green removes the SD card and power-supply variables entirely and pairs cleanly with a Connect ZBT-2 coordinator. Check the current Home Assistant Green on Amazon.

If you are still comparing platforms, continue with the Home Assistant hardware comparison, the Home Assistant Green review, the Zigbee coordinators guide, and the Home Assistant automations guide.