Home Assistant on Proxmox: Setup & Best Mini PCs (2026)

Running Home Assistant on Proxmox VE gives you something a plug-in hub can’t: a snapshot taken in seconds before every monthly update, scheduled full-machine backups, and the freedom to move an entire smart home onto new hardware by restoring an image rather than rebuilding it. You also get spare capacity on the same box for a Pi-hole container, a Frigate NVR or a lightweight NAS.

The trade-off is that “install Home Assistant on a mini PC” hides an enormous amount of variation. An Intel N100 box and a three-year-old ex-corporate ThinkCentre suit very different households, and the wrong choice shows up later as USB passthrough failures at eleven at night. This guide covers the three install routes (and which ones Home Assistant actually supports), the VM settings that decide whether HAOS boots at all, then the hardware — scored on the Proxmox-specific columns that matter.

Because the setup questions come first for most buyers, the walkthrough leads and the buying advice follows.

Quick picks: mini PCs for a Home Assistant VM

Three ways to install Home Assistant on Proxmox — and which are supported

This is where most confusion starts, so it’s worth being blunt about the options.

1. HAOS in a KVM virtual machine (officially supported)

The standard route: download the Home Assistant OS qcow2 image and import it as a KVM virtual machine. This gives you the full Supervisor stack — add-ons, the built-in backup system, one-click updates — and it is the method Home Assistant’s own installation documentation covers under its “alternative” install page at home-assistant.io/installation/alternative. If you want the supported experience with add-ons, this is the one.

2. HA Container in an LXC (supported, but limited)

Home Assistant Container runs in a lightweight LXC container. It is officially supported, but there is no Supervisor and no add-ons, which means HACS and your integrations are managed manually. It’s a reasonable choice for a confident user who wants a very light footprint; it’s a frustrating one for anyone who expects the add-on store.

3. HAOS in an LXC via community scripts (explicitly unsupported)

Community helper scripts can install HAOS inside an LXC container, and the Supervisor does function. Be clear about the status, though: this route is explicitly unsupported by the Home Assistant team. The best-known helper-script project lost its original maintainer, tteck, who died in 2024, and it is now community-maintained on GitHub under the community-scripts/ProxmoxVE repository. That project is genuinely useful and actively kept alive — but it is not a supported configuration, and upgrade breakage is your problem to solve.

Setting up the HAOS VM: the settings that trip people up

Proxmox VE 8.x (built on a Debian 12 Bookworm base) is current through 2026, and its VM settings differ from the VE 7 era — so old tutorials can send you down the wrong path. These are the non-obvious points.

UEFI only. The HAOS image is UEFI-only, so a VM created with the default SeaBIOS firmware simply will not boot it. You must select OVMF as the BIOS, set machine type to q35, and disable Secure Boot / Pre-Enrolled Keys. Get this wrong and you’ll see a blank console and assume the image is corrupt.

CPU type host. Set the VM’s CPU type to host rather than the kvm64 default. This passes the host’s real CPU instruction set through to the guest, which helps performance and resolves some USB compatibility oddities.

Importing the disk. Rather than a fresh install, you import the downloaded image with the qm importdisk command. Note that the image filename is versioned — for example haos_ova-12.x.qcow2 — so pull the current file from Home Assistant’s GitHub releases page rather than relying on a link from an older guide.

Networking. Create a Linux Bridge (vmbr0) mapped to your physical NIC. Without that bridge attached to the VM, Home Assistant will not get an IP address, and you’ll be staring at an unreachable homeassistant.local.

USB passthrough and Zigbee coordinators: the failure everyone searches for

If there’s one problem that sends Home Assistant on Proxmox users to a search engine, it’s the Zigbee stick that works, then stops working after a host reboot. The dongle’s device path changes when it re-enumerates, and the VM is still pointing at the old path.

This is most commonly reported on CP2102-based dongles — older Sonoff sticks and some ConBee II units — and considerably less common on EFR32MG21 or CC2652-based hardware. Three mitigations exist, and they are worth ranking by robustness rather than convenience.

1. PCIe passthrough of the whole USB controller. The most reliable fix: hand the entire controller to the VM so the dongle never leaves its bus. It requires the controller to sit in its own IOMMU group — check that with the iommu_groups script on the Proxmox VE wiki’s USB passthrough page before buying hardware on the assumption it’ll work.
2. A network-attached coordinator. Devices such as the SMLIGHT SLZB-06 or SLZB-07 talk to Home Assistant over Ethernet (PoE), which removes USB from the equation entirely. No passthrough, no re-enumeration, no udev rules.
3. Vendor/product ID passthrough plus a udev rule. The convenient option, and the least robust of the three: it targets the device by ID rather than by port, which survives most reboots but still depends on the host recognising the stick first.

The backup caveat nobody mentions. Restoring a Home Assistant backup restores your ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT configuration, but it does not restore the Zigbee radio network itself. If the coordinator hardware changes — even to a different model of the same chip family — devices have to be re-paired. Both the ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT projects publish migration documentation for this, and it’s worth reading before you swap a stick, not after.

Coordinators worth buying

• Sonoff ZBDongle-E — EFR32MG21 chip, USB. Appears on both the ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT supported-adapter lists, which is the practical test of whether a stick will be trouble-free.
• SMLIGHT SLZB-06M / SLZB-07 — EFR32MG21, Ethernet/PoE. These eliminate USB passthrough entirely, which is the single biggest reliability upgrade available to a Proxmox-hosted setup.
• Home Assistant Connect ZBT-1 — EFR32MG21, USB, sold through Home Assistant’s own official EU/UK shop at nabu.casa. The safest pairing choice if you want the vendor to stand behind compatibility.
• Zooz ZST39 800 — Z-Wave 800 series, USB, for households running Z-Wave rather than (or alongside) Zigbee.

How to choose a Proxmox host: the six specs that matter

Generic mini-PC reviews won’t help you here. These are the columns that decide whether a box is a good Home Assistant VM host.

• IOMMU group separation. If the USB controller shares an IOMMU group with other critical devices, you can’t pass it through cleanly — which rules out mitigation number one for Zigbee reliability.
• USB controller passthrough. Whether the machine can hand a USB controller to a VM at all, rather than only individual devices.
• Spare drive bay. A second bay lets you run a Proxmox Backup Server disk locally, so backups land on separate physical storage rather than the same NVMe as the VM.
• Upgradeable RAM (SODIMM vs soldered). SODIMM slots mean you can start at 16 GB and grow; soldered memory means the ceiling is fixed at purchase.
• Claimed idle watts. A hypervisor runs 24/7, so idle draw is a running cost, not a footnote.
• Barebone vs complete. Barebone systems need RAM and an SSD added before they’ll boot — factor that into the price comparison.

RAM and storage sizing

16 GB is the comfortable floor for HAOS plus a handful of add-ons and containers. If you’re planning Frigate on the same host, size against Frigate’s published minimum hardware page rather than against Home Assistant’s own modest requirements — object detection is what drives RAM and CPU, not the hub itself. On storage, Home Assistant’s installation documentation carries its own warning about SD cards and wear, which is one of the better arguments for a Proxmox host with an NVMe drive: snapshots and SSD-backed storage address the same reliability problem twice.

On CPU, Home Assistant itself is light — a dual-core chip is genuinely enough for a modest setup. The headroom is for everything else. The Intel N100 and N150 (4 cores, around 6 W TDP) are the efficiency sweet spot; the N305 (8 cores) suits Frigate or multiple VMs; and older ex-corporate chips such as the i5-8500T remain excellent value.

The best mini PCs for Home Assistant on Proxmox in 2026

1. Beelink Mini S12 Pro — best for most households

Best for: the typical household running HAOS in a VM with a few add-ons and containers alongside.

Under the lid it’s an Intel N100 with 16 GB DDR4 SODIMM (upgradeable, not soldered) and a 500 GB NVMe drive. Beelink claims roughly 6 W idle, which over a year of 24/7 operation is the difference between a box you forget about and one you notice on the electricity bill. It’s quiet, it’s small, and 16 GB is already at the comfortable floor for HAOS.

The caveat: a single M.2 bay, so there’s no separate disk for a local Proxmox Backup Server datastore — you’ll be backing up to network storage or an external target instead.

Verdict: the default recommendation. Around £160–£220 complete, and nothing in that range is meaningfully better for HAOS alone.

Where to buy: typically stocked at Amazon UK, Scan, Overclockers and eBuyer. Prices checked May 2026.

2. Lenovo ThinkCentre M720q Tiny (refurb) — best value per pound

Best for: buyers who want ex-corporate build quality and a proper backup disk bay for the price of a budget mini PC.

These ship with an i5-8500T or i7-8700T, and the SODIMM slots take DDR4 up to 64 GB — far beyond anything HAOS needs, which leaves room for Frigate or a second VM. The standout feature for this use case is the spare 2.5” bay, ideal for a dedicated Proxmox Backup Server disk so your backups never share storage with the thing they’re protecting.

The caveat: the M720q’s Windows 11 incompatibility has depressed resale values, which is exactly why it’s such a value buy — but you must check the drive caddy is present, as refurbished units often ship without one. A baseline around 16 GB / 256 GB is the sensible specification to price against; expect around £90–£160 refurbished, configuration-dependent.

Verdict: the cheapest route to a genuinely capable, serviceable host — if you’re comfortable buying refurbished.

Where to buy: CEX and eBay UK are the usual sources for refurbished ThinkCentres. Prices checked May 2026.

3. GMKtec NucBox G3 Plus / G5 Plus — a compact N100/N150 alternative

Best for: anyone who wants the Beelink formula but finds it out of stock or overpriced.

These are N100/N150 machines in the same class as the Mini S12 Pro, typically around £130–£190.

The caveat: GMKtec’s IOMMU group layout should be verified before buying if PCIe passthrough of a USB controller is part of your plan — that layout varies between boards and revisions, and it determines whether mitigation number one for Zigbee reliability is even available to you.

Verdict: a solid, slightly cheaper alternative, but check the passthrough situation first if Zigbee is central to your setup.

Where to buy: GMKtec systems are typically listed at Amazon UK, and comparable N100/N150 mini PCs appear at Scan, Overclockers and eBuyer. Prices checked May 2026.

4. Minisforum UM790 Pro — best for Frigate and multiple VMs

Best for: households running Frigate object detection plus HAOS plus at least one other VM on a single box.

This one moves up a tier: a Ryzen 9 7940HS, DDR5 SODIMM, and dual M.2 bays — which means genuine storage separation for a Proxmox Backup Server disk without an external enclosure. That combination of cores, DDR5 memory and two NVMe slots is what Frigate wants.

The caveat: at around £380–£480, it’s roughly double a Beelink, and the extra performance does nothing for a plain HAOS install with a handful of add-ons. Buy it for the workload, not the headroom.

Verdict: the right answer if your Proxmox host is also your NVR; overkill if it isn’t.

Where to buy: typically listed at Amazon UK, with comparable barebone and complete systems appearing at Scan and Overclockers. Prices checked May 2026.

5. Home Assistant Green — the appliance alternative

Best for: readers who want a smart home hub, not a homelab.

Home Assistant Green is the official appliance, and it draws roughly 5 W per Home Assistant’s own specification page. It runs Home Assistant directly: no Proxmox, no virtual machines, no snapshot-before-upgrade workflow and no spare capacity for a second VM.

The caveat: there’s nothing to configure and nothing to break, which is precisely the point — and precisely the limitation. If you’ve read this far because you want USB passthrough control, multiple VMs and Proxmox-level backups, this isn’t the product for you.

Verdict: the honest recommendation for anyone who wants to plug in a box and never think about a hypervisor again.

Where to buy: sold through Home Assistant’s official shop.

UK buying notes

New hardware is typically stocked at Amazon UK, Scan, Overclockers and eBuyer; refurbished ThinkCentres are the preserve of CEX and eBay UK. The Home Assistant Connect ZBT-1 is available via Home Assistant’s official EU/UK shop at nabu.casa.

Prices in this guide were checked in May 2026. All prices exclude VAT where applicable — B2C listings at the retailers above are typically VAT-inclusive, so business buyers should expect the figure shown to differ from the ex-VAT price.

FAQ

Can I run Home Assistant OS in a container instead of a VM? Yes, in the sense that HAOS can be run in an LXC container using community-maintained helper scripts, and the Supervisor will work. But that configuration is explicitly unsupported by the Home Assistant team, and the helper-script project is now community-maintained on GitHub under community-scripts/ProxmoxVE after its original maintainer died in 2024. For a supported setup with add-ons, use the HAOS qcow2 image in a KVM virtual machine. Home Assistant Container in an LXC is also supported, but without the Supervisor you lose add-ons entirely.

Why won’t my HAOS VM boot after I created it? Almost always the firmware setting. The HAOS image is UEFI-only, so a VM left on the default SeaBIOS won’t boot it — you need OVMF as the BIOS, machine type q35, and Secure Boot / Pre-Enrolled Keys disabled. It’s also worth noting that Proxmox VE 8.x settings differ from VE 7, so a tutorial written for the older release can lead you to the wrong option.

How much RAM should I give a Home Assistant VM? 16 GB is the comfortable floor for HAOS plus a few add-ons and containers, and it’s why SODIMM-upgradeable machines are worth prioritising over soldered-memory ones. If Frigate is going on the same host, size against Frigate’s published minimum hardware page instead — object detection, not Home Assistant itself, is what consumes memory. Home Assistant’s own CPU needs are modest; a dual-core chip copes with a typical setup.

My Zigbee stick stops working after a host reboot. What’s happening? The dongle re-enumerates and its device path changes, so the VM is still pointed at a path that no longer exists. This is most commonly reported on CP2102-based dongles — older Sonoff sticks and some ConBee II units — and much less common on EFR32MG21 or CC2652 hardware. The robust fixes are passing through the whole USB controller via PCIe, or switching to a network-attached coordinator such as an SMLIGHT SLZB-06 or SLZB-07, which removes USB from the equation.

If I restore a Home Assistant backup, do my Zigbee devices stay paired? Your ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT configuration comes back with the backup, but the Zigbee radio network itself does not. If the coordinator hardware changes — even between models using the same chip family — devices typically have to be re-paired. Both ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT publish migration documentation covering this, and it’s worth reading before you order a replacement stick rather than after it arrives.

Do I need a spare drive bay and a Proxmox Backup Server disk? It’s a meaningful reliability upgrade rather than a requirement. A second bay lets backups land on separate physical storage from the VM they’re protecting, which matters because a failed NVMe takes both the guest and any backups stored on it. The Lenovo M720q Tiny’s 2.5” bay and the Minisforum UM790 Pro’s dual M.2 slots are the picks here that make it straightforward; the Beelink Mini S12 Pro’s single M.2 bay means backing up to network storage instead.

Is buying a refurbished ex-corporate mini PC risky for a 24/7 hub? It’s one of the better value plays in this category — the M720q’s Windows 11 incompatibility has pushed resale prices down, so you get i5-8500T or i7-8700T silicon and SODIMM slots taking up to 64 GB of DDR4 for around £90–£160. The practical risk is completeness rather than wear: check that the drive caddy is present before buying, since refurbished units frequently ship without one. Buy from a retailer with a returns policy and verify IOMMU group layout once it arrives.