I have a Pi 3 which I am using as a PC just for fun. I got it to make home automation.
I have watched several youtubes on installing Home Assistant. It looks like it is probably over my head. There are comments like 'you will have to install ___fill in the blank___ ' more on that in a different video. Looks like I will spend all days and not get it all installed.

I really only need to talk Sonoff and some I2C relay boards.

Will the Pi be useable as a PC with Home Assistant running?
Should I get a 'Home Assistant on a SIM Card". Install from that and forget using the Pi for anything else? Is that easier?

I really don't know software, but I have NodeRed doing many of the things I need. Just by looking at other people's code and modifying. It appears Home Assistant is very large and has NodeRed hiding inside.

I am trying to understand If I should spend the next 40 hours learning NodeRed or Home Assistant?

 

Home Assistant has some things going for it. It is focused on home automation, it has a lot of hardware support, it has an active community of HA-focused users.

On the other hand, given you say you just need to talk to Sonoff devices, and some I²C devices, those things might not be so helpful. NodeRed is an amazingly robust system and extremely flexible. It can do quite a bit with no code, and almost anything if you add some.

Since you are already having some success with NodeRed, the question is, what do you anticipate gaining with HA? It seems to me that NodeRed is probably sufficient for your application. HA will be a lot of overhead that doesn't seem to bring benefits.

 

Thanks.

 

I've not tried Home Assistant, but I'd think Node Red vs Home Assistant are different apps at least in terms of their intended use and design.

I liked NodeRed partly for its design and today there are quite a lot of 3rd party developed open sourced nodes, flows etc. https://flows.nodered.org/
More often I used it to graph sensor readings.

For SON/OFF apparently has apparently published their various protocols (they may need the firmware as well)
https://sonoff.tech/diy-developer/
Hence, my guess is you could try those things out even on your PC if you managed to get a wifi connection to the SonOff.

Using a RPi would be more for the case that you decided to switch off your PC and simply have the RPi interact with the SonOff.

My guess is you may even be able to work the SonOff from NodeRed, check out the custom nodes and flows, just in case someone has done it.
https://flows.nodered.org/search?term=sonoff

 

I am using the "node-red-contrib-ewelink 2.0.0" it works well for SonOff. I have little experience with Node Red.
I am trying not to flash the sonoff things. They, in most cases work on their own.
I want to stay WiFi because I have a large network. Adding 433mhz, Zigbee or more adds complexity.

From my point of view, node red was used to make Home Assistant. I can make the same front panels.

 

I'm developing some C software for my Home Assistant installation (using the MQTT integration) that's running on one of my x86 Linux servers.

Hardware interface driver: https://github.com/nsaspook/daq_gert/tree/mqtt/bmc
Remote interface tester: https://github.com/nsaspook/daq_gert/tree/comedi/bmc

It's a Linux Comedi DAQ interface using MQTT. https://www.comedi.org/
The development hardware is an old K8055/VM110 board. https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/...xperiment-interface-board.179140/post-1631303

All the demo does is to control an LED pattern on the board from a remote mqtt publisher and send the DAQ board inputs to the broker for others to read and use.

The plan is to use the board(s) for additional digital control of the energy monitoring system running on Home Assistant.