• Home Assistant Yellow
• Heat sink assembly bag
• Ethernet cable

Additionally, make sure you have the following items which are not part of the Kit

• Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4)
• USB flash drive
• Optional: Power supply (12V/2A, if PoE is not used)

Grounding protects the components from the static electricity that can be naturally present (electrostatic discharge, ESD).

• Always: Touch the working surface before touching electronics.
• Ideally: Use ESD protective equipment, such as ESD table mats and grounding cords.

• Remove the 4 screws on the bottom of the Home Assistant Yellow Kit.
• Keep the thumb screws close by; you will need them again later.

• Make sure the interfaces are facing towards your left.
• Flip the case over.
• Slightly lift off the enclosure on your left.
• Slide the enclosure off towards your right.

• Make sure you have all the components:
• 1 Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4)
• 1 heat sink
• 2 thermal pads
• 2 push pins

• The raspberry icon needs to be upside down: check for correct orientation of the CM4.
• Use the outline of the chips to help find the correct orientation of the CM4.
• Carefully place the CM4 without force.
• Use the white outline representing the CM4 to align the CM4.
• The CM4 should fall into place slightly when correctly aligned.

• Press the CM4 board onto the board-to-board connectors until it clicks into place.
• Make sure you press on both sides (the two long edges).
• Make sure the CM4 is installed correctly: it needs to run parallel to the Home Assistant Yellow board.

• Remove the protective cover from one side of the square thermal pad.
• Stick the unprotected side onto the SOC (the silver square next to the raspberry icon).
• Remove the protective cover from the top side of the thermal pad.
• Repeat the steps with the rectangular thermal pad. Place it on the memory (the black rectangle next to the SOC).

• Push the 2 plastic push pins into the dedicated hole on the heat sink.
• Start by first aligning the right plastic push pins into the dedicated hole on the carrier board.
• Then, place the heat sink onto the CM4.

• Take the entire board off your workplace and push the pins firmly through the carrier board.
• Ensure that the CM4 is still fully seated after securing the heat sink.

• Place the translucent bottom part of the case onto the table.
• Make sure the two round notches form a line pointing towards the top right corner.

• Place the board onto the bottom part of the case.
• Make sure the USB connectors are facing upwards, away from you.

• Turn the enclosure upside down.
• Then, slide the push buttons into the openings of the case.

• Insert the 4 thumb screws.
• Do not over-tighten the screws.

• Install the Raspberry Pi Imager on your computer as described under https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/
• If your platform doesn't support the Raspberry Pi Imager, you can use another imager (e.g. balenaEtcher) and flash the Home Assistant OS Installer for Yellow directly from GitHub releases.

• Open Raspberry Pi Imager.

• Click Choose OS
• Choose Other specific-purpose OS.
• Choose Home assistants and home automation.
• Choose Home Assistant.
• Choose Home Assistant OS Installer for Yellow.

• Insert the USB flash drive into the computer. Note: The contents of this drive will be overwritten.
• From the dropdown menu, select your USB flash drive.

• Click the Write button to start the process.
• Wait for the Home Assistant OS Installer to be written to the USB flash drive.

• Insert the USB flash drive with the Home Assistant OS Installer into your Home Assistant Yellow Kit.

• Connect the Ethernet cable to your Home Assistant Yellow Kit.

• If you are not using PoE, connect the power supply to Home Assistant Yellow Kit.
• For CM4 Lite Home Assistant OS is automatically installed on the NVMe SSD. For regular CM4s Home Assistant OS is installed onto the eMMC by default.
• Advanced: Forcing installation onto the NVMe SSD when using CM4 with eMMC:
  Press the blue button while the yellow LED is on constantly (during the 5s window, see next step).

• Wait for Home Assistant Yellow to start booting from the USB flash drive.
• During boot, the Yellow LED blinks in a heartbeat pattern.
• Once the installer is ready, the yellow LED is on constantly.
• Installation will start automatically after 5 seconds.
• If the yellow LED does not start blinking steadily after a few seconds, but stays on constantly: This indicates that there might be a network issue.

• Wait for Home Assistant Yellow to finish installing the Home Assistant Operating System.
• The yellow LED starts to blink steadily.
• Once the installer finished installing Home Assistant Operating System, only the red LED will be on.

• Remove the USB flash drive.
• Remove the power cable.

• Reinsert the Ethernet cable.
• Reinsert the power cable to start Home Assistant (if PoE is not used).

• Initial startup may take a while, depending on your internet connection.
• Install the app
  To access Home Assistant from your mobile device, use the QR code to locate the app in the app store.
• Select your Home Assistant Server:
  • Mobile: Confirm the IP address detected by the app. E.g. http://192.168.1.196:8123
  • Desktop: Visit http://homeassistant.local:8123 to access the Home Assistant frontend.
• The Home Assistant frontend guides you through the initial onboarding.
• For further information, refer to the instructions provided under https://www.home-assistant.io/getting-started/onboarding/.