For the start of the school year Home-Assistant and Jeedom unveil two new boxes, the Home-Assistant Amber vs Jeedom Atlas. Amazing when you know that they both went out a few days apart. The difference lies in the fact that the Amber box is in presale on the platform. crowdsupply who close the 27 October 2021, with an official release for June 2022 while Jeedom Atlas is already available for sale on the site Domadoo.

Common Points Home-Assistant Amber vs Jeedom Atlas

• Both operate in 100% local network (no need for Cloud)
• These are two boxes that normal people can use to start on the Home Assistant platform without having to worry about buying their own computer
• Software 100% Opensource
• Many plugins FREE

Let’s Start With Home-Assistant Amber

The Amber Box is more than promising because it is an integration card accommodating the raspberrypi component CM4 card available in several 1,2 and 4gb variants of optional wifi memories and with or without an 8, 16 or 32gb emmc. The box is compatible with all CM4 cards.

Advantages of box Amber:

• Raspberry pi CM4 (available full variants)
• M.2 controller NVMe SSD disk up to 2TB
• Direct boot on SSD
• POE + power supply possible IEEE 802.3at-2009 Class 3 or 4 (selectable via jumper)
• Pushbuttons
• 10 pins GPIO
• Translucent case
• custom heat sink
• Tool-free assembly
• Zigbee Embedded Silicon Labs Openthread and Matter compatible
• Zigbee plugin included
• Supports 2230, 2242, 2260 and 2280 modules
• 1x USB-C 2.0 in UART or USB mode
• High quality audio Dac
• RTC clock
• Status LEDs (can be turned off during Normal operation)
• Low power consumption 1.5 to 9w depending on condition
• Plugins 100% Free to (over 100 Devices and services available)

Disadvantage Amber by Home Assistant

Well not much!

• Injection molded polycarbonate housing ( less qualitative than aluminum)
• Specific power supply cylindrical 12V / 2A
• No external antenna for the Zigbee and Wifi
• 10-pin GPIO and not 40 because it is already used on the card.
• Reception of the box scheduled for June 2022

let’s continue with Jeedom Atlas

Advantage Jeedom Atlas

• French Box
• Number of USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports (4 in all).
• Zigbee plugins Included
• Aluminum case
• Zigbee outdoor antenna Included
• Next purchase Protocol (Zigbee, Z-wave or Enocean)
• already available for sale
• Box delivered ready to use whatever the variant
• Many plugins available

Disadvantage Atlas par Jeedom

• Rock PI4 card (less developed card and used)
• SSD integration not planned (expansion card still available for sale)
• POE + not supported for the power supply
• Storage emmc max 32GB can quickly become limited depending on the number of plugins.
• Quite a lot of Paid Plugins

Compare of Box Home-Assistant Amber vs Jeedom Atlas

To be objective on the comparison, I took the prices of the crowdsupply platform, of the CM4 with 4gb of memory, wifi and 32GB of emmc disk.

The prices are equal but if in my case I decide to go with an Amber box boarding:

• POE + power supply at 122 € delivered at Crowdsupply
• with a Kingspek SSD of 128GB at 22.45 € delivered on aliexpress
• a CM4 at Kubii of 4gb of memory with wifi but without on-board disk at € 57.95 delivered

We get a Box HomeAssistant Amber at 204,4 € with technical specifications superior to Jeedom Atlas.

Conclusion

I have used Jeedom for years from version 1 to version 4, which means that I know the system that runs under the PHP language well, then I switched to Home Assistant because I wanted to change the ergonomics (Python language) and wanted to switch to all free . These are two good softwares, I find Home Assistant’s line of conduct more relevant and natural and it also shows on their designs of the box. So if you are not pressed for time, I strongly advise you to choose the Box Amber, you just have to look at the advantages. On the other hand if you are in a hurry or you have a large Francophone community, choose Jeedom Atlas, but which in my opinion remains below Home Assistant both in software and hardware.