--- title: The Raspberry Pi price hikes pushed me to ESP32s, and... description: Raspberry Pi price hikes of up to 83% above launch price prompted a switch to ESP32 microcontrollers for smart home automation. Running a single Pi as a... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-raspberry-pi-price-hikes-pushed-me-to-esp32s-and-honestly-my-smart-home-runs-better-now-yxfyutct1 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The Raspberry Pi price hikes pushed me to ESP32s, and honestly my smart home runs better now | daily.dev og:description: Raspberry Pi price hikes of up to 83% above launch price prompted a switch to ESP32 microcontrollers for smart home automation. Running a single Pi as a... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-raspberry-pi-price-hikes-pushed-me-to-esp32s-and-honestly-my-smart-home-runs-better-now-yxfyutct1 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/yXFyutcT1.png og:image:alt: The Raspberry Pi price hikes pushed me to ESP32s, and honestly my smart home runs better now og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The Raspberry Pi price hikes pushed me to ESP32s, and honestly my smart home runs better now **[XDA Developers](https://daily.dev/sources/xda-developers)** · 6 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Raspberry Pi price hikes of up to 83% above launch price prompted a switch to ESP32 microcontrollers for smart home automation. Running a single Pi as a catch-all created a single point of failure — reboots took down the entire home. Migrating sensors and automation nodes to ESP32 boards running ESPHome eliminated the lag from polling-based state updates, reduced network chatter, and improved reliability. Home Assistant was moved to a mini PC, while the Pi was reassigned to a focused role running NetAlertX, Uptime Kuma, Pi-hole, and Unbound. The key insight is that distributing workloads across single-purpose devices produces a more resilient system than relying on one general-purpose board. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Your smart home needs fewer Raspberry Pis and more boring microcontrollers](https://daily.dev/posts/your-smart-home-needs-fewer-raspberry-pis-and-more-boring-microcontrollers-1bztj3x5b) · XDA Developers · 4 upvotes · 0 comments - [I replaced my Raspberry Pis with $5 ESP32s for smart home projects, and they do everything I need](https://daily.dev/posts/i-replaced-my-raspberry-pis-with-5-esp32s-for-smart-home-projects-and-they-do-everything-i-need-tusk09yso) · XDA Developers · 3 upvotes · 0 comments - [I moved my Raspberry Pi projects to $5 ESP32 boards, and nothing broke](https://daily.dev/posts/i-moved-my-raspberry-pi-projects-to-5-esp32-boards-and-nothing-broke-oymq1dlqy) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [My ESP32 fills the same niche as a Raspberry Pi SBC, and it does so at a fraction of the cost](https://daily.dev/posts/my-esp32-fills-the-same-niche-as-a-raspberry-pi-sbc-and-it-does-so-at-a-fraction-of-the-cost-qsxzantnn) · XDA Developers · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [The ESP32 makes more sense than a Raspberry Pi for your smart home](https://daily.dev/posts/the-esp32-makes-more-sense-than-a-raspberry-pi-for-your-smart-home-y5qqwv06e) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#tech-news](https://daily.dev/tags/tech-news), [#iot](https://daily.dev/tags/iot), [#raspberry-pi](https://daily.dev/tags/raspberry-pi) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-raspberry-pi-price-hikes-pushed-me-to-esp32s-and-honestly-my-smart-home-runs-better-now-yxfyutct1) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The Raspberry Pi price hikes pushed me to ESP32s, and honestly my smart home runs better now","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-raspberry-pi-price-hikes-pushed-me-to-esp32s-and-honestly-my-smart-home-runs-better-now-yxfyutct1","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-raspberry-pi-price-hikes-pushed-me-to-esp32s-and-honestly-my-smart-home-runs-better-now-yxfyutct1"},"datePublished":"2026-07-08T00:04:20.543Z","dateModified":"2026-07-08T00:04:47.642Z","description":"Raspberry Pi price hikes of up to 83% above launch price prompted a switch to ESP32 microcontrollers for smart home automation. Running a single Pi as a...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/53a1ceec4245f4d8c53bbb67e39a6af1?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/53a1ceec4245f4d8c53bbb67e39a6af1?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"XDA Developers","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"XDA Developers","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--kCg6yyAP--/f_auto,q_auto/v1774964407/logos/xda-developers?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/xda-developers"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-raspberry-pi-price-hikes-pushed-me-to-esp32s-and-honestly-my-smart-home-runs-better-now-yxfyutct1","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"tech-news,iot,raspberry-pi","timeRequired":"PT6M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"XDA Developers","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/xda-developers"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"The Raspberry Pi price hikes pushed me to ESP32s, and honestly my smart home runs better now"}]} ```