After our successful crowd-funding campaign we got lots of feedback from newcomers…
We are investigating the addition (not replacement of existing) of a new hardware version and we want your feedback on this one.
As many people came from the openHAB land they already had an instance of openHAB running in their houses in more powerful computers with maybe already setup additional peripherals. This pushed them to the (right) direction of changing HestiaPi to a dummy extension to their main openHAB.
The result was a wall-mount remote relay with sensor and display.

Moving to this direction we are considering dropping the Raspberry Pi off our design and downgrading to an ESP based controller (something like an Arduino with WiFi).
A smaller non-touch OLED display with a rotary knob will enable the device to be physically controlled without having to pull your phone out every time you need to interact. A gentle beeper/buzzer speaker will add more ways to interact with the user if not present.

WiFi will still be the only networking capability with MQTT of course as it has always been so far. No change there. The thermostat would be 100% functional using it locally without anything else. Without even WiFi! But if you link it to your openHAB system, or any MQTT based system it will simply extend both ways your existing setup minimizing the modifications needed on your end.

The above changes are expected to make the unit smaller and cheaper. The less processing power needed and the fewer electronic components will dissipate less heat so passive cooling will be easier in a smaller and even more crowded case. The power supply block may even be swapped for a smaller one.

As we slowly move production of the original HestiaPi to China, we might as well do that too and offer production-line quality from the first batch with smaller costs.

So this is your turn… What do you think?

Please share your thoughts but keep in mind the general direction we are trying to move to.