Pulcro TurnKey Node

Fantastic US based Customer Service. I don't usually do Amazon reviews but this unit is so good I could not miss the chance to talk about it. The unit itself is robust and perfect for its purpose but the company an customer service we absolutely amazing. It is a US based company and the Customer Support (CS) I believe is out of Texas. I had an issue logging into the unit when I first set it up. I tried help forums and AI to solve the problem and finally I decided to reach out to the CS team through email. The response I got back was quick, pleasant and helpful with real troubleshooting - not just a preread script. It turned out that the issue was due to an update in the Home Assistant software and not the unit itself. The port used to access the unit on the network had been changed making the old address unaccessable. The CS team walked me through every step of the way even though the issue even though it was not an issue with the machine. My problem was solved with a couple of back and forth messages and I was well on my way. I really felt like the team cared to get me working. I wish all companies were this good.

Excellent value. This thing has been a champion so far. This is by far the best deal on hardware for a mini PC that I could find. This thing is cheaper than a lot of even N100 based mini PCs on the market currently, which is crazy with how much more powerful this is. Even if you don't intend to use this with Home Assistant, there probably aren't any better deals on Intel-based mini PCs (though there are a small handful of competitive offerings on Ryzen PCs, which are less versatile if you want any local AI setups for things like cameras).

Setup was pretty much completely plug and play. It was set up to power back on after power loss out of the box, which was the main thing I needed, so I didn't even need a keyboard and mouse to get right into Home Assistant. It's super fast getting absolutely everything done, and has tons of headroom for future expansion (especially for cameras).

The physical build of the PC is one of my bigger complaints. The case looks nice, but it's a very cheap feeling plastic. All the budget went into the specs, which is definitely the better option, but it stings that a device over $300 feels weaker than something 3D printed. I also find the orientation of the USB ports potentially problematic for use with USB dongles. The ones on the front are oriented as expected, but the ones on the back are flipped from the usual orientation. The problem with this is that it doesn't play nicely with the antennae I use for Zigbee & Z-Wave. This could be a good thing depending on your hardware choice though.

This also only has a single gig ethernet port. This will probably not be a limitation for anyone, but a 2.5 gig port would have been appreciated.

I was not familiar with the brand, so the first thing I went through when setting this device up was to check the brand out and check if anything weird was happening in software. The brand seems legit to me on a glance, but there isn't a ton of info on them, mostly just scattered owners of their products on Facebook and Reddit. They also have some scattered social media articles and YouTube videos to help users, which I think is a good sign.

I did, however, see someone mention that they were planning to clean install HA just in case there was any malware pre-installed. There was nothing unusual in the HA setup (it's the same as the setup you get when clean installing HA), and there were no custom integrations or software installed in HA itself. I also have been logging the DNS requests from this device and pulling logs off of it every few days. There is nothing odd whatsoever in the DNS requests. The HA device logs also don't have any signs of obvious malware. Traffic activity in my Unifi Network console also shows only normal traffic. This isn't definitive proof either way (I will definitely need to do more digging in the terminal at some point) but I'm leaning towards saying there *probably* isn't anything malicious here. I feel comfortable having it on my home network personally at least.

Runs HA with no issues. Being running HA for over a month now. No issues or lag. Everything has been running smoothly. Got it up and running quick and easily. Worth it

Solid mini-pc for your home lab / home assistant needs with US builder / seller support. Great mini-pc for Proxmox, Home Assistant, or both! I have two of these for the home lab, clustered with proxmox, running various services for the home network. Setup is straightforward out of the box. Expandable / upgradeable, low power, and works exactly as described. It's priced competitively with other mini-pcs, but comes with great support from the local US builder / seller. Highly recommended.

Good device .... Shipping should be changed. Besides the being held hostage by a required signature at delivery this is a good product. I received this 4 days late because of the shipping requirement. - Pulcro.io's Response: I'm sorry Ryan that your package was delayed due to the carrier not being able to reach you at your address. For high value items, we do ship with the requirement of a signature, and I believe this was the root cause of the delay. Albeit, I hope your unit is now in your hands and serving you well.

★★★★★ 5/5 I bought this hoping to put all my home automation in one place and get away from running things on random hardware. The hardware itself exceeded expectations.