The openhome box — reference hardware
An openhome box is just a computer you own. Buy a prebuilt one or build it. The
software is free and runs the same either way.
Tiers
Starter — "it runs the house"
For automations, a few cameras, and a small local model.
- CPU: modern 4–6 core mini-PC (Intel N100 / Ryzen equivalent)
- RAM: 16 GB
- Storage: 1× 1 TB NVMe (system + metadata) + 1× HDD for recordings
- Local LLM: 7–8B quantized (chat + simple reasoning)
- Radios: Matter-over-WiFi + a Zigbee/Thread USB stick
Standard — "local AI, real NAS"
Comfortable local LLM + multi-camera recording + redundancy.
- CPU: 8-core (Ryzen 7 / Core i7 class)
- RAM: 32 GB
- GPU: entry discrete GPU or strong iGPU/NPU for video decode + LLM accel
- Storage: 2× NVMe (mirror) + 2–4× HDD in RAID for the NAS
- Local LLM: 13B quantized comfortably
Power — "self-hosted everything"
Bigger models, many cameras, whole-home.
- CPU: 12+ cores
- RAM: 64 GB+
- GPU: 12–24 GB VRAM (run 30B+ or fast 13B, plus real-time vision)
- Storage: NVMe cache + large RAID array
Radios & protocols
- Matter / Thread — default for new devices.
- Zigbee (Sonoff/ConBee stick + zigbee2mqtt), Z-Wave (Z-Wave JS stick).
- Cameras: ONVIF + RTSP (avoid cloud-only cameras — they defeat the purpose).
Buy vs. build
- Build: any mini-PC or NAS chassis + drives + a radio stick. Flash the image,
done.
- Buy: a prebuilt "open-home box" (a future first-party/partner option) — same
open software, no assembly.
The principle: whatever you run it on, you own it. No device here should require a
vendor cloud to function on your LAN.