After successfully setting up a Home Assistant OS (HAOS) VM on my Raspberry Pi 5 (KVM/libvirt approach), I wanted to test a minimal Debian 12 ARM64 VM for InfluxDB and Grafana.
Since I use Raspberry Pi 5 as a virtual machine (VM) host for Home Assistant OS (HAOS) in KVM, I want a system that is simple, stable, and reliable.
After repeated microSD drawbacks, I selected the Samsung 870 EVO SSD 500GB via USB3 over my previous Raspberry Pi 128GB microSD U2 for system storage.
This guide shows how to pass through the SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus to a Home Assistant OS (HAOS) virtual machine running on Raspberry Pi 5 using KVM/libvirt. This allows you to use Zigbee devices directly within your virtualized Home Assistant setup.
Running Home Assistant directly on a Raspberry Pi is the default, but what if you want KVM virtualization on the same Pi 5? Virtualizing HAOS gives you snapshots, easy backup, and the ability to run other services alongside it. This guide walks through the full setup — from installing libvirt and KVM on a Pi 5 to getting Home Assistant accessible on your LAN.