2024.12.3
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Windows

Install Home Assistant Operating System

Download the appropriate image

After downloading, decompress the image. If the image comes in a ZIP file, for example, unzip it.

Follow this guide if you already are running a supported virtual machine hypervisor. If you are not familiar with virtual machines, install Home Assistant OS directly on a Home Assistant Yellow, a Raspberry Pi, or an ODROID.

Create the virtual machine

Load the appliance image into your virtual machine hypervisor. (Note: You are free to assign as much resources as you wish to the VM, please assign enough based on your add-on needs).

Minimum recommended assignments:

  • 2 GB RAM
  • 32 GB Storage
  • 2vCPU

All these can be extended if your usage calls for more resources.

Hypervisor specific configuration

  1. Create a new virtual machine.
  2. Select type Linux and version Linux 2.6 / 3.x / 4.x (64-bit).
  3. Under Hardware, select the amount of memory and number of CPUs. Then, select Enable EFI.
    • Make sure EFI is enabled. If EFI is not enabled, HAOS won’t boot.
  4. Under Hard Disk, select Use an existing virtual hard disk file, select the unzipped VDI file from above.
  5. Then go to Network > Adapter 1. Choose Bridged Adapter and choose your network adapter.
    Please keep in mind that the bridged adapter only functions over a hardwired Ethernet connection. Using Wi-Fi on your VirtualBox host is unsupported.
  6. Then go to Audio and choose Intel HD Audio as audio controller.

By default, VirtualBox does not free up unused disk space. To automatically shrink the vdi disk image the discard option must be enabled using your host machine’s terminal:

VBoxManage storageattach <VM name> --storagectl "SATA" --port 0 --device 0 --nonrotational on --discard on

More details can be found about the command can be found here.

  1. Download the .qcow2 image above and decompress it. (Extract all in Windows)
  2. Store the image in the isos share on your server.
  3. Make sure under Settings > VM manager, Enable VMs is enabled.
  4. Create a new virtual machine: VMS > Add VM.
  5. Select type Linux and give the VM a name and a description.
  6. Select the CPU cores you want to let the VM use and give it some memory.
  7. Under Primary vDisk Location, select Manual and then select the qcow2 image.
  8. Select your keyboard language under VM Console Keyboard.
  9. Select br0 under Network Source.
  10. Select virtio under Network model.
  11. Select any USB-devices that you want to pass through to Home Assistant, such as Zigbee- or Z-Wave controllers.
  12. Deselect Start VM after creation.
  13. Select Create.
  14. Select the name of your new VM and select the capacity number for your disk. Here, you can expand the disk to whatever your needs are. The default is 32 GB.
  15. Select the icon of your new VM and select start with console (VNC).
  1. Create a new virtual machine in virt-manager.
  2. Select Import existing disk image, provide the path to the QCOW2 image above.
  3. Choose Generic Default for the operating system.
  4. Check the box for Customize configuration before install.
  5. Under Network Selection, select your bridge.
  6. Under customization select Overview > Firmware > UEFI x86_64: …. Make sure to select a non-secureboot version of OVMF (does not contain the word secure, secboot, etc.), e.g., /usr/share/edk2/ovmf/OVMF_CODE.fd.
  7. Click Add Hardware (bottom left), and select Channel.
  8. Select device type: unix.
  9. Select name: org.qemu.guest_agent.0.
  10. Finally, select Begin Installation (upper left corner).
virt-install --name haos --description "Home Assistant OS" --os-variant=generic --ram=4096 --vcpus=2 --disk <PATH TO QCOW2 FILE>,bus=scsi --controller type=scsi,model=virtio-scsi --import --graphics none --boot uefi

If you have a USB dongle to attach, you need to add the option --hostdev busID.deviceId. You can discover these IDs via the lsusb command. As example, if lsusb output is:

   Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
   Bus 003 Device 004: ID 30c9:0052 Luxvisions Innotech Limited Integrated RGB Camera
   Bus 003 Device 003: ID 1a86:55d4 QinHeng Electronics SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus V2
   Bus 003 Device 002: ID 06cb:00fc Synaptics, Inc. 
   Bus 003 Device 005: ID 8087:0033 Intel Corp. 
   Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
   Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
   Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

You can recognize the Sonoff dongle at Bus 003 Device 003. So the command to install the VM will become:

virt-install --name haos --description "Home Assistant OS" --os-variant=generic --ram=4096 --vcpus=2 --disk <PATH TO QCOW2 FILE>,bus=scsi --controller type=scsi,model=virtio-scsi --import --graphics none --boot uefi --hostdev 003.003

Note that this configuration (bus 003, device 003) is just an example, your dongle could be on another bus and/or with another device ID. Please check the correct IDs of your USB dongle with lsusb.

  1. Start VMware Workstation and select Create a New Virtual Machine.
    • Note: the exact name and location of the settings below depend on the VMware version. This procedure is based on version 17.
  2. Select I will install the operating system later, then select Linux > Other Linux 5.x kernel 64-bit.
  3. Give the VM a name, home-assistant, and define an easy to reach storage location, such as C:\home-assistant.
  4. Specify the disk size and select Store virtual disk as a single file.
  5. Select Customize Hardware.
  6. Define the amount of memory and the number of cores the VM is allowed to use.
  7. Remove the New CD/DVD entry. It will not be used.
  8. Connect an Ethernet cable and make sure it is connected to your network.
  9. Under Network adapter, select Bridged: Connected directly to the physical network.
    • Make sure Replicate physical network connection state is not selected.
    • Select Configure Adapters.
    • Make sure all virtual adapters and Bluetooth devices are deselected.
    • Select your host network adapter. Most likely, this is one of the first 2 checkboxes in the list:
      • Select the one for Ethernet.
      • The exact names of these adapters depend on your hardware.
  10. At the end of the wizard, select Finish.

Edit the VM settings

  1. In Windows Explorer, navigate to the storage location of your newly created VM, for example under C:\home-assistant.
  2. Delete the home-assistant.vmdk file.
  3. In the Downloads folder, find the haos_ova_xx.x.vmdk file.
    • If you haven’t unzipped the archive, unzip it.
    • Within the folder, find the .vmdk file and rename it to home-assistant.vmdk.
    • Paste the file (not the unzipped folder) into the C:\home-assistant folder.
  4. Right-click the .vmx file and select Open with > Notepad.
  5. Under .encoding, add a line. Enter firmware = "efi".
  6. Now continue with the next step to start your VM.
    • If you see a message about side channel mitigations, select OK.
    • If you see a message stating that the .vmdk file could not be found, in step 3, you likely pasted the folder, not the file. Repeat step 3.

⚠️ Hyper-V does not have USB support

  1. Create a new virtual machine.
  2. Select Generation 2.
  3. Select Connection > Your Virtual Switch that is bridged.
  4. Select Use an existing virtual hard disk and select the VHDX file from above.

After creation, go to Settings > Security and deselect Enable Secure Boot.

Start up your virtual machine

  1. Start the virtual machine.
  2. Observe the boot process of the Home Assistant Operating System.
  3. Once completed, you will be able to reach Home Assistant on homeassistant.local:8123. If you are running an older Windows version or have a stricter network configuration, you might need to access Home Assistant at homeassistant:8123 or http://X.X.X.X:8123 (replace X.X.X.X with your ’s IP address).

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With the Home Assistant Operating System installed and accessible, you can continue with onboarding.

  Onboarding

Install Home Assistant Core

Install WSL

To install Home Assistant CoreHome Assistant Core is the heart of Home Assistant itself. It is a Python program that powers every installation type, but can be installed standalone. [Learn more] on Windows, you will need to use the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). Follow the WSL installation instructions and install Ubuntu from the Windows Store.

As an alternative, Home Assistant OS can be installed in a Linux guest VM. Running Home Assistant CoreHome Assistant Core is the heart of Home Assistant itself. It is a Python program that powers every installation type, but can be installed standalone. [Learn more] directly on Windows is not supported.

Caution

This is an advanced installation process, and some steps might differ on your system. Considering the nature of this installation type, we assume you can handle subtle differences between this document and the system configuration you are using. When in doubt, please consider one of the other installation methods, as they might be a better fit instead.

Prerequisites

This guide assumes that you already have an operating system setup and have installed Python 3.13 (including the package python3-dev) or newer.

Install dependencies

Before you start, make sure your system is fully updated, all packages in this guide are installed with apt, if your OS does not have that, look for alternatives.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade -y

Install the dependencies:

sudo apt-get install -y python3 python3-dev python3-venv python3-pip bluez libffi-dev libssl-dev libjpeg-dev zlib1g-dev autoconf build-essential libopenjp2-7 libtiff6 libturbojpeg0-dev tzdata ffmpeg liblapack3 liblapack-dev libatlas-base-dev

The above-listed dependencies might differ or missing, depending on your system or personal use of Home Assistant.

Create an account

Add an account for Home Assistant Core called homeassistant. Since this account is only for running Home Assistant Core the extra arguments of -rm is added to create a system account and create a home directory.

sudo useradd -rm homeassistant

Create the virtual environment

First we will create a directory for the installation of Home Assistant Core and change the owner to the homeassistant account.

sudo mkdir /srv/homeassistant
sudo chown homeassistant:homeassistant /srv/homeassistant

Next up is to create and change to a virtual environment for Home Assistant Core. This will be done as the homeassistant account.

sudo -u homeassistant -H -s
cd /srv/homeassistant
python3 -m venv .
source bin/activate

Once you have activated the virtual environment (notice the prompt change to (homeassistant) homeassistant@raspberrypi:/srv/homeassistant $) you will need to run the following command to install a required Python package.

python3 -m pip install wheel

Once you have installed the required Python package, it is now time to install Home Assistant Core!

pip3 install homeassistant==2024.12.3

Troubleshooting: If you do not see the above version of Home Assistant package in your environment, make sure you have the correct Python version installed, as defined under the Prerequisites.

Start Home Assistant Core for the first time. This will complete the installation for you, automatically creating the .homeassistant configuration directory in the /home/homeassistant directory, and installing any basic dependencies.

hass

You can now reach your installation via the web interface on http://homeassistant.local:8123.

If this address doesn’t work you may also try http://localhost:8123 or http://X.X.X.X:8123 (replace X.X.X.X with your machines’ IP address).

Note

When you run the hass command for the first time, it will download, install and cache the necessary libraries/dependencies. This procedure may take anywhere between 5 to 10 minutes. During that time, you may get a site cannot be reached error when accessing the web interface. This will only happen the first time. Subsequent restarts will be much faster.