Companion on the Raspberry Pi

Companion on the Raspberry Pi - A Primer

ℹ️ First and foremost: Companion can be installed on a Raspberry Pi 2B, 3B, or 3B+, but it is not recommended or supported. Should you choose to do so, you do so at your own risk and with the understanding that the community will not be able to help you if something goes wrong.

The Raspberry Pi 4 is the first Raspberry Pi SBC (single board computer) that is able to stably run the Companion software. The 4GB/8GB variants of the Raspberry Pi 4/400 are the only recommended options. As stated above, any Raspberry Pi SBC lower than the 4 is unsupported and is used at your own risk.

If you are installing Companion from scratch, make sure you've got your system updated with the latest eeprom/firmware updates (info here). A recent update (late October 2019) combines the update mechanisms for both the SPI EEPROM and the VLI USB controller chip. Installing the latest updates will (in the future) open up the ability to boot your Raspberry Pi from a network-connected device or from an external USB storage device, and also updates the VLI firmware to reduce power consumption and bring running temperatures down by up to 3-4 °C.

Companion on pre-4 Raspberry Pi systems

• Raspberry Pi 2B
• Raspberry Pi 3B
• Raspberry Pi 3B+
• Raspberry Pi Zero
• Raspberry Pi Zero W
• Raspberry Pi Zero W2

Initial Raspberry Pi community development and testing was performed on multiple variants (primarily the Raspberry Pi 3B/+). While installation is possible, various operation / stability issues were identified that are resolved by using the upgraded Raspberry Pi 4 (4GB+ memory) system configuration. This is most likely due to multiple (potentially interrelated) factors, including power output capability (e.g. to power a Stream Deck), power input requirements, OEM power supply capacity, Ethernet-no-longer-on-shared-USB-bus, maximum RAM, and of course CPU (as detailed in Issue #313). Accordingly, ongoing development efforts are focused on Raspberry Pi 4 systems.

Securing your Raspberry Pi

If you haven't already, it is strongly recommended to change the default password of the pi user. Doing this will help secure your system from unauthorized access. There are other security-oriented best practices that are recommended, such as:

• making sudo require a password
• making sure you've got the latest security fixes
• improving SSH security

All of these recommended best practices can be found here, on the raspberrypi.org website: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/security.md

CompanionPi Images

You can find current CompanionPi documentation here: CompanionPi Documentation

Manual Installation

Instructions for installing Companion manually on a Raspberry Pi (or other linux machine) can be found here: Manual Install on Raspberry Pi

Updating Companion

Instructions for updating Companion on your Raspberry Pi can be found here: Updating Companion on your Raspberry Pi

Upgrading Companion from an earlier major version

If you have a CompanionPi install that was made before the 2.2.0 CompanionPi image, it is recommended that you backup your config and reimport it into a fresh installation.

A lot has changed in the 2.2.0 builds, including an overhaul of the CompanionPi images. The major change is the ability for CompanionPi to manage various dependencies itself, allowing future updates to be done in a seamless manner.