Question about Blue Iris and Home Assistant on the Same Machine

[terrabl]

Hi all, I'm considering using a single computer/server to power both Blue Iris and Home Assistant. I believe I need a decent computer/server for this (how can I determine if mine's adequate?), and then connect that computer to a switch for my PoE cameras. A few queries:

1. Would integrated graphics suffice, or is a dedicated graphics card necessary for Blue Iris with my camera system?
2. If I need a graphics card, how can I determine which one's adequate for my setup?
3. If you were doing this, would you separate out your Blue Iris box from your HA box?

Any insights or experiences would be greatly appreciated!

 

[actran]

@terrabl You should review other threads on PC recommendations for BI5.

I am currently running BI5, CodeProject.AI and Home Assistant on an Optiplex 5050 i7-7700K (bought many years ago so a bit dated now). You should get a more recent CPU if you can afford it. I also got an Nvidia card to run CodeProject.AI on GPU, offloading CPU.

Home Assistant can't be run on Windows directly, you'll need to run it via Docker or VM. I'm running it as VM on Virtualbox.

 

[jec6613]

If you were doing this, would you separate out your Blue Iris box from your HA box?

Just responding to this part: yes, 100%, unless your single box is overpowered.

HA runs in a Hyper-V VM just fine, so that part would be easy enough, but BI can spike the CPU for certain operations, and that leads to issues with HA, which is surprisingly CPU and memory hungry for what it does, being as it is just a pile of JIT code. A NUC11 Celeron/Pentium model, or an RPI, would be a better choice to have guaranteed performance, and save headaches.

One other thing that's much less obvious is that once you have two systems, they can monitor each other, so you can get an alarm if the BI box goes down or you can set up a tiny alarm to verify that HA is up.

 

[The Automation Guy]

I use to run my automation software (not Home Assistant, but another software based system) and BI on the same machine. It worked just fine and I never really had a problem. But I eventually split them into two different machines. I like having them separated. I don't have to worry about one system crashing and taking out the other. I can also do maintenance on one without affecting the other.

You could certainly argue that running one or both in a VM is the same as running them on separate machines. I guess it might be if you are using a host system that ran all the VMs separate from the OS (like Proxmox, etc). I would not recommend using the BI computer to host a VM machine running Home Assistant. That is really no better than running them on the same machine IMHO.

Power costs not factoring into it, it is very cheap to get a dedicated machine to run BI.

 

[terrabl]

Power costs not factoring into it, it is very cheap to get a dedicated machine to run BI.

What would you suggest for a dedicated machine to run just BI?

 

[The Automation Guy]

What would you suggest for a dedicated machine to run just BI?

A used i5-8600 desktop with 16gb RAM (something like the Dell 5060 Optiplex or HP EliteDesk 800 G4). Don't worry if the listing says "No OS". 99% of these Dell and HP desktops had Windows OEM installed on them from the factory. Because they are OEM versions, they are tied to the hardware. You can simply put a new HD in the computer and install Windows 10 (or 11) and it should validate itself with the MS servers. Unless you are extremely unlucky and get one of the computers that had Linux installed on it from the factory, you won't have to buy a Windows license.

I just checked and there are plenty of options on EBay for right around $150 with free shipping. If you can find a deal, you might even get it for around $100.

 

[looney2ns]

Dell OptiPlex 7060 SFF i5-8500 @ 3.00GHz 8GB No HDD No OS +SC347 | eBay

SC347 F3 C3. Model: OptiPlex 7060 SFF. Hard Drive: No HDD. Note: Machines sold without hard drives may or may not include the HDD connectors, caddy, screws, or covers. Software: No OS. Make: Dell. -Key Function Tested.

www.ebay.com

 

[terrabl]

Awesome! Thank you all for this assistance. So I thought of another potential idea, I have this gaming laptop sitting around from when I was travelling for work, could I potentially install BlueIris on there and just have it sit in clamshell mode plugged in?

• GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB GDDR5
• Intel Core i7 8th Gen 8750H (2.20GHz)
• 16GB Memory 1TB HDD 128 GB M.2 SATA SSD

What would be the pros and cons of this? I assume the pros would be that I already have it and don't have to pay, while the cons would be that the electricity might be a little greater than one of these desktop computers?

 

[looney2ns]

Lapttops are generally bad choices due to over heating concerns, and the throttling of the CPU due to that heating.
A laptop hard drive isn't a good long term solution.

Choosing Hardware for Blue Iris

Buy refurbished. Don't build or buy new. The most cost-effective Blue Iris computers are refurbished business-class systems such as "HP EliteDesk" and "Dell OptiPlex". You can usually get a good deal by searching [URL='http://www.ebay.com/']Ebay[/URL] for specific CPU model numbers, and...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[CrazyAsYou]

You won't have any issues running BI and HA and CP.AI and other stuff all on the same PC providing it have enough RAM/memory to cope, I've done this for years without any problems.

Unless you plan to have many cameras, an older 6th gen i5 or i7 (I think it was Intel Skylake) system/desktop PC will do great, you ideally want 16GB ram. Run Windows 10 as the main OS for BI and CP.AI and then run home assistant as a VM using Virtual Box, give HA ~4GB vram and 2 vCPUs and it will run great. If you want a bit more grunt for CP.AI trying adding an older GTX 970 or similar for CUDA support.

I have the above system running for my mum with 7 x 1080P cams, 24/7 recording, CP.AI with large model loaded, HA running, Plex server, torrent client, VPN server, backup destination for her mac all without any issues at all.