Setting it up

Everything GrowRig does runs on a Hub: a small, always-on computer in your home that hosts Home Assistant, Grow Core, the Grow App, and your data — all locally. Getting from an empty tent to running automation is a short journey in four stages:

1. Set up your Hub — this page. The brain that runs everything.
2. Connect your devices — get your sensors, plugs, and light visible to Home Assistant so GrowRig can use them.
3. Add a Grow Controller (optional) — a small board for smooth, variable-speed fan control instead of plain on/off.
4. First run — open the Grow App, assign roles, set your targets, and let it take over.

Stage 1 is the Hub. There are three ways to get one, from most turnkey to most hands-on — pick the one that matches how much you want to build yourself. The software and everything after this page are identical on all three.

This page is also a plan

GrowRig is early and being built in the open, and the three paths below are at different stages of readiness. Each one is tagged with where it stands today, so this page doubles as a map of where the project is heading. When in doubt, path 3 works right now.

Choose your Hub

	1 · GrowRig Hub	2 · DIY Hub	3 · Your own Home Assistant
What it is	Our ready-made Hub, unboxed and ready	HA Green, a Raspberry Pi, or a spare PC you flash yourself	Add Grow Core to a Home Assistant you already run
You provide	Nothing but power & network	The board/PC	An existing HAOS install
Effort	Plug in and go	Flash one image	Install one add-on
Best for	Anyone who wants it to just work	Tinkerers and existing Pi owners	Current Home Assistant users
Status	🔜 Planned	🚧 In progress	✅ Works today

Whichever you choose, you end up with the same thing: a Hub running Home Assistant OS with Grow Core alongside it. The rest of the docs — devices, roles, targets — apply identically.

Path 1 · Buy a GrowRig Hub

The simplest path: a GrowRig Hub is a purpose-built little computer that arrives with Home Assistant OS and Grow Core already installed and tuned. Plug in power and network, open the Grow App, and go straight to first-time setup. No flashing, no add-ons, no command line.

Status: planned

The GrowRig Hub product doesn’t exist yet — it’s the destination we’re building toward, and it’s why the software is packaged the way it is. Until it ships, use path 2 to turn commodity hardware into the same thing, or path 3 if you already run Home Assistant. Want one when it’s ready? Let us know on Discord.

Path 2 · Build a DIY Hub

Turn hardware you buy (or already own) into a Hub by flashing a single GrowRig disk image that bundles Home Assistant OS + Grow Core + the Grow App. Good target hardware:

• Home Assistant Green — the easiest buy-it option: a small, silent, ready-to-run box.
• Raspberry Pi 4 or newer, 2 GB RAM or more — with an SD card or, better, an SSD/NVMe.
• Almost any spare mini PC or laptop (x86-64) — repurpose old hardware.

The goal is that flashing our image is all it takes — the equivalent of Home Assistant’s own installer, with GrowRig already inside.

Status: in progress

The prebuilt, all-in-one GrowRig image isn’t published yet. In the meantime you can build the exact same Hub in two well-trodden steps:

1. Install Home Assistant OS on your board or PC using the official Home Assistant installation guide. (This is what the GrowRig image will automate.)
2. Add Grow Core to it by following path 3 below.

That gets you a fully working DIY Hub today; the single-image flow is purely about skipping step 1.

Path 3 · Add Grow Core to your own Home Assistant

Already running Home Assistant OS on a Pi, a NUC, HA Green/Yellow, or a VM? Then you already have a Hub — you just need Grow Core on it. Grow Core installs as a local Home Assistant add-on. It connects to Home Assistant automatically through the Supervisor (no tokens to copy) and serves the Grow App in your browser.

Today this is a manual, hands-on install from the platform repository:

1. Build the add-on binaries for your Hub’s architecture:

   make addon        # cross-compiles the arch-matched binaries

2. Copy the ha-addon/growrig/ folder onto your Hub’s addons share (/addons/growrig/).
3. In Home Assistant, open Settings → Add-ons → Add-on Store → ⋮ → Check for updates, then install GrowRig — Grow Core from Local add-ons and click Start.
4. Click Open Web UI (the add-on serves the dashboard on host port 8099 by default).

For options and details see Configuration and the Home Assistant integration page.

Status: works today — getting easier

The manual local-add-on install above works right now. A one-click install from a GrowRig add-on repository — add a URL under Add-on Store → ⋮ → Repositories, then click Install — is coming next, so you won’t need to build or copy anything. The roadmap tracks it.

Next: connect your devices

With a Hub running, you have the brain — now give it something to sense and control. Continue to Connect your devices to bring your sensors, plugs, and light into Home Assistant so GrowRig can use them.

• Want smooth, variable-speed fans instead of on/off? See Add a Grow Controller.
• Ready to drive it all from the app? Jump to First run.

Where to go deeper

• Learn the model behind roles and capabilities in The device model.
• See exactly how Grow Core talks to your devices in Home Assistant integration.
• Keep it safe: Safety & security.