- must not add insane amounts of cost to my power bill
- Has to be upgradable if I need to add upgrades to the hardware in the future
- Has a speaker
- may want to possibly also set up node red but it depends on if I need it or not because I may just be fine with home assistants automation
- has to have wireless connectivity
- mainly setting this up to add automation around my reolink cameras linked through the reolink home hub for example getting a second camera in the same area to start recording when one detects motion or link other smart home security products like sirens or floodlights
These don’t have a speaker AFAIK but they do have 3.5mm out so adding one would be trivial:
https://www.amazon.com.au/GMKtec-Upgraded-Desktop-Computer-Business/dp/B0F7XRLRM6
They idle around 10W according to a review by Jeff Geerling. That’s on Win11 though, I’d imagine Home Assistant OS is a little bit less. As for upgrades, the CPU isn’t socketed, but it uses standard laptop SODIMMs, and a full-size M.2 slot. You aren’t going to find socketed CPUs until you move up to a mini-ITX computer, like a Dell Optiplex USFF, but those do eat a decent bit more power, maybe 20-30W idle. It Has WiFi 6 and would easily handle multiple addons like Node RED.
Edit: Oh yeah, it has a 2242 SATA M.2 slot as well, so you can add some cheaper, slower storage as well as the 512GB NVMe boot drive if you wanted.