Requirements
The computer
Section titled “The computer”| Minimum | Recommended | |
|---|---|---|
| Raspberry Pi | Pi 4, 4 GB of memory | Pi 4 with 8 GB (or Pi 5, 8 GB) |
| Mini-PC or server | AMD64 or ARM64, 4 GB of memory | 8 GB |
| System | Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS (already included in the Raspberry Pi image) | |
| Storage | 32 GB, 16 GB free | USB SSD, or NVMe on a Pi 5 |
With 4 GB Élise starts, but the TV screen and video calls leave too little headroom: plan for 8 GB for the full installation.
A microSD card works, but an SSD copes much better with the database’s continuous writes.
The Zigbee radio
Section titled “The Zigbee radio”A USB Zigbee adapter links the sensors. It can be plugged in before or after installation: Élise recognises it by name when it can, otherwise it tries each Zigbee2MQTT driver family until one answers.
Recognised families: Silicon Labs (EmberZNet), Texas Instruments (Z-Stack), ZiGate, deCONZ (ConBee, RaspBee) and ZBOSS. See Sensors and Zigbee adapter.
Matter, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or Z-Wave devices use their usual Home Assistant integration and do not need the adapter.
The network
Section titled “The network”- Ethernet or Wi-Fi. The hub announces itself on the local network as
elise.local. - Internet is needed during installation and for updates. An outage does not stop Élise from working inside the home.
- For remote access, a free Tailscale account for the family.
The TV (optional)
Section titled “The TV (optional)”For the resident screen:
- an HDMI TV with CEC enabled (Anynet+, SimpLink, Bravia Sync… depending on the brand) that stays powered in standby;
- optionally, a USB webcam with a microphone for two-way calls. Without a camera, calls are receive-only.
| Port | Use |
|---|---|
| 8080/TCP | Caregiver space on the local network |
| 8443/TCP | Remote caregiver space, through Tailscale only |
| 8555/TCP+UDP | Camera WebRTC video and intercom |
| 18080/TCP | Internal gateway to Tailscale (loopback) |