Home Assistant Installation: Step-by-step instructions for Raspberry Pi

Home Assistant is the most powerful open source system for smart home automation. In the following instructions, I will show you how I installed Home Assistant OS on a Raspberry Pi 5 on an NVMe SSD. The goal was a high-performance, long-lasting setup without a microSD card in continuous operation.

Hardware

I used the following components for my setup:

Raspberry Pi 5
64 GB microSD
Raspberry Pi® NVMe SSD Kit 256GB
SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus
Official Raspberry power supply

For Zigbee integration, I use ~~the RaspBee II module,~~ the SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus, which connects to the Raspberry Pi via USB. I took the detour via a microSD card with Pi OS Lite, as the NVMe cannot be integrated as an external drive or similar. I discarded the attempt with the RaspBee II module because I couldn’t get the system to run stably that way.

Classification: Why the intermediate step with the microSD makes sense

Before Home Assistant OS is written to the NVMe SSD, a microSD card with Raspberry Pi
microSD card with Raspberry Pi OS is used. This intermediate step is not a detour,
but ensures that the firmware, boot loader and boot sequence are set correctly.
Especially with new or longer stored Raspberry Pi 5s, this is crucial so that
the subsequent NVMe boot works reliably.

The microSD is used exclusively as a temporary maintenance and configuration system.
It is removed again once the installation is complete and plays no role in subsequent operation.
no longer plays a role.

Step 0: Prepare Raspberry Pi OS on microSD

Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit) is written to the microSD card
(e.g. with the Raspberry Pi Imager). Then:

Insert the microSD into the Raspberry Pi
Start the Pi
Connect via LAN
Log in via SSH

Update firmware and bootloader

First, the system is completely updated, including the EEPROM/bootloader:

sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade -y
sudo rpi-eeprom-update -a
sudo reboot

After the reboot, the firmware status can be checked:

rpi-eeprom-update

An up-to-date boot loader that supports NVMe boot is important.

Set boot sequence to NVMe

The boot sequence is then explicitly adjusted:

sudo raspi-config

Path:

Advanced Options
→ Boot Order
→ NVMe/USB

Then reboot the system:

sudo reboot

At this point, the Raspberry Pi is technically ready to boot directly from the NVMe SSD
to boot. Only now does the actual step follow, in which Home Assistant OS is written to the
NVMe is written.

Step 1: Check NVMe detection

After booting the Raspberry Pi OS, check via SSH:

lsblk

Typical target image:

mmcblk0 – microSD (running system)
nvme0n1 – NVMe SSD (target for Home Assistant OS)

Important: The NVMe must not be mounted and must not have any active partitions.

Step 2: Download the exact Home Assistant OS asset

The generic “latest” download does not work reliably.
The exact asset name of the current release must be used.

Example (release 16.3 for Raspberry Pi 5):

wget https://github.com/home-assistant/operating-system/releases/download/16.3/haos_rpi5-64-16.3.img.xz

Note: The file name may change with new releases and, if in doubt, should be
checked beforehand in the GitHub release.

Step 3: Write Home Assistant OS directly to the NVMe

Now the image is written raw to the NVMe.
This step completely overwrites the SSD.

xz -dc haos_rpi5-64-16.3.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/nvme0n1 bs=4M status=progress
sync

Attention:
Target must be /dev/nvme0n1.
/dev/mmcblk0 would be the microSD and must not be used here under any circumstances.

Step 4: Shut down the system cleanly

sudo poweroff

Wait until:

the green LED on the Raspberry Pi is off
no more activity is visible on the NVMe LED

Step 5: Switch to NVMe boot

Physically remove the microSD card
Supply Raspberry Pi with power again
The bootloader now starts automatically from NVMe

The first start of Home Assistant OS takes a relatively long time
(2 to 10 minutes). Do not intervene during this time.

Step 6: Check accessibility

Important:

Home Assistant OS does not have WLAN on initial startup
A LAN connection is absolutely necessary to get started

Once initialization is complete, Home Assistant can be reached via Ethernet at

http://homeassistant.local:8123

or via the IP address assigned by the router:

http://<IP address>:8123

Done! Check out here what happens after you log in!