Home Assistant Green has no wireless radios of its own, and that fact decides whether it’s a good first hub. For a home of WiFi and Matter over WiFi devices, it’s a good one, and it needs no adapter. Zigbee and Z-Wave gear each needs a USB adapter, though, and so does Thread unless you already own a border router. Green has two ports to share. In the Home Assistant Green vs Yellow choice, only Green is still being made.
What Green is
Nabu Casa, the company behind Home Assistant’s official hardware, designed the Home Assistant Green Smart Home Hub. The Home Assistant software is open source, and you can install it on hardware of your own. Green is a small box with it already installed, cooled by a large aluminum heatsink, so it runs without noise.
Setup takes two cables and an app. Plug in the power supply and the Ethernet cable, then let the Home Assistant app or web app guide you. The first start can take a while, since it depends on your internet connection.
Home Assistant lists more than 1,500 integrations. It also works alongside an existing Apple HomeKit, Google Home, SmartThings or Alexa setup, so you can start without replacing anything. For Google Home and Alexa, and for SmartThings webhooks, Home Assistant recommends its Cloud subscription, so budget for it.
So Green is for anyone who wants their smart home to run inside the house, especially with a mix of brands.
Home Assistant Green specs
| Spec | Home Assistant Green |
|---|---|
| Processor | Quad-core Arm Cortex-A55, Rockchip RK3566, 1.8 GHz |
| Memory | 4 GB LPDDR4X |
| Storage | 32 GB eMMC, not replaceable |
| Network | Gigabit Ethernet |
| USB | Two USB 2.0 Type-A, sharing 5 V at up to 2 A |
| Wireless radios | None built in |
| Other ports | HDMI for diagnostics and microSD for recovery, nothing else |
| Power | 12 V DC, 1 A supply, roughly 1.7 W at idle and 3 W under load |
| Cooling | Large aluminum heatsink, silent |
| Size | 112 × 112 × 32 mm (4.41 × 4.41 × 1.26 in) |
| In the box | Hub, universal power supply, Gigabit Ethernet cable, quick start guide |
Two rows shape everything after this. The storage can’t grow inside the box, and the two USB ports must carry every adapter and any extra drive.
Green or a Raspberry Pi?
Pick Green if you’d rather start with the smart home than with the computer, and pick a Raspberry Pi if you already own one or like building things. Home Assistant’s install page calls Green “the quickest way to start,” because nothing needs flashing. The Pi route needs a Raspberry Pi 5 or 4 with 2 GB of RAM or more, plus its power supply. You also need a microSD card of at least 32 GB, a card reader and an Ethernet cable, and then Raspberry Pi Imager to write the software to the card.
Home Assistant Green vs Yellow
Yellow, the older model, had a Zigbee and Thread radio built in and an M.2 slot for an NVMe drive. But the Yellow Kit needed your own Raspberry Pi Compute Module, a CM4 or, by Nabu Casa’s support pages, a CM5. Home Assistant’s Yellow page now says the product “is no longer in production, but continues to receive software updates.” So the Home Assistant Green vs Yellow question matters mainly to people who already own a Yellow. A Yellow owner who runs Zigbee and moves to Green needs a Zigbee adapter, such as a ZBT-2, to replace the built-in radio.
What else you’ll need, by setup
What you add to Home Assistant Green depends on your devices. New to the names? See our Zigbee vs WiFi vs Matter guide.
- WiFi devices only. Nothing extra.
- Matter over WiFi or Ethernet. No adapter, just the Matter integration, and you add new Matter devices through the Home Assistant Companion app on your phone, not a browser.
- Zigbee. An adapter such as Home Assistant Connect ZBT-2, which ships with Zigbee firmware.
- Thread. Either a ZBT-2 switched to Thread, or a border router you already own, such as an Apple TV 4K, HomePod mini or Nest Hub (2nd Gen). Apple ones have one catch. With any Apple border router on the network, Home Assistant’s Matter updates for Thread devices don’t currently work. Green’s page also still marks Thread through the ZBT-2 as “currently under development.”
- Zigbee and Thread together. One ZBT-2 runs a Zigbee or a Thread network, never both at once.
- Z-Wave. An adapter such as Home Assistant Connect ZWA-2. For another brand, Home Assistant recommends an 800-series model on firmware 7.23.2 or later if you’re new to Z-Wave.
- Bluetooth. A USB adapter, or an ESP32 Bluetooth proxy, which Home Assistant calls “a better approach” in many cases.
- Remote access, Alexa and Google. Home Assistant Cloud, Nabu Casa’s optional subscription, is the easiest route for most people. A VPN such as Tailscale, or a manual Alexa or Google setup, works too, with more steps.
- Local voice. On Green, the Speech-to-Phrase engine transcribes in “under one second,” Home Assistant’s voice guide says. It handles only part of Assist’s commands, though, and the voice guide points the Whisper engine at “powerful hardware.” You talk to either one through the phone app or a Voice Preview Edition.
Count the USB ports
Side by side, Green’s spec sheet and Home Assistant’s adapter pages show that ports, not radios, set the limit. Each adapter takes one of the box’s two USB ports, so map your home before you buy:
- WiFi or Matter over WiFi only. No ports used, and both stay free.
- Zigbee only. One ZBT-2, which leaves a port for a Bluetooth adapter or an external drive.
- Zigbee and Z-Wave. A ZBT-2 and a ZWA-2 fill both ports. Bluetooth then goes through an ESP32 proxy, and no port is left for an external drive.
- Zigbee and Thread. Two ZBT-2s fill both ports, or one does if you already own a border router.
- Zigbee, Thread and Z-Wave. That’s three adapters for two ports, so hand Thread to a border router you already own.
At Home Assistant’s recommended US prices, Green costs several times as much as a ZBT-2, and a ZBT-2 plus a ZWA-2 still cost less than Green. So a Zigbee and Z-Wave home pays for Green plus two adapters, while an all-WiFi home buys the box alone.
The catches: a cable, some patience and a backup
Skip Green if you want wireless from the box, because it connects over Ethernet and has to sit near your router or a switch. A dongle won’t change that, since Nabu Casa doesn’t recommend running Green on a Wi-Fi dongle. Skip it, too, if you want a hub you set up once and forget. Getting it running is quick, but building automations takes patience.
Green is “designed to be used as-is,” its page says, and the eMMC storage inside can’t be replaced. When that storage wears out or fills up, you can add an external USB data disk, which takes a port. Nabu Casa’s backup guide asks for at least one copy kept off the box. A copy in Home Assistant Cloud or on a network drive counts, so set one up on day one.
Questions before you buy
Does Home Assistant Green work without the internet?
Yes, once Green is set up. The software on Green “keeps your data locally,” Home Assistant says, and you can reach your home “even when the Internet is down.” The first setup needs an internet connection, though, and so do remote access and Alexa or Google voice control.
Can you move an existing Home Assistant setup to Green?
Yes. Home Assistant Green can restore a backup during its first setup, so you can move over from a Raspberry Pi. The catch is size. Green has 32 GB of storage, so the setup you bring across must be a bit smaller.
What happens to Home Assistant Cloud in December?
Home Assistant Cloud gets a new name. Home Assistant plans to rename it Home Assistant Link on December 2, 2026, calling it “Same service, new name.” Cloud stays optional on Home Assistant Green. Nabu Casa offers a free trial with no card details needed, so you can try remote access before paying.