Mini PCs for Home Assistant and Proxmox

Home Assistant runs on almost anything, so the hardware question is really about what else the box has to do. If it only runs Home Assistant, a small ARM box is enough. If it also runs Frigate, a media server, or a few VMs under Proxmox, you want x86, more RAM, and a second SSD slot.

Three things matter most when choosing:

• Idle power. This box runs 24 hours a day. The difference between 2 W and 25 W idle is about 200 kWh a year.
• Network ports. One gigabit port is fine for Home Assistant alone. Two ports, or 2.5 GbE, matter once the box is also a router VM, a NAS, or an NVR.
• USB for radios. Zigbee, Thread, and Z-Wave sticks plug in over USB. Put them on a short extension cable away from the case and any USB 3 ports, which interfere with 2.4 GHz radios.

These are researched picks, not long-term ownership reports. Specs come from the makers’ pages; power numbers come from the reviews named in each verdict.

What to watch out for

Install method decides what you get. Home Assistant OS, on bare metal or in a Proxmox VM, gives you add-ons and one-click backups. Home Assistant Container on top of another OS does not support add-ons, so you run those services as your own containers.

Check the power-on behavior. A mini PC that stays off after a power cut takes your whole house offline until someone presses the button. Set the BIOS to power on after AC loss before you rely on it. The EQ14 supports this; on other boxes, look for it in the BIOS before you buy.

The MS-01 is sold as a barebone. Budget for DDR5 SO-DIMMs and at least one NVMe drive on top of the listed price.

Verdict

For Home Assistant and nothing else, buy the Green. It draws almost no power and has no OS install to get wrong. For Home Assistant plus a few other services, or a first Proxmox box, the Beelink EQ14 is the better value. Buy the MS-01 only when one machine has to carry a whole homelab and you need 10G networking.