Mac Mini or Macbook

Posted on
Sun May 08, 2022 8:34 am
pnm offline
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Joined: Dec 03, 2014
Location: Yorkshire, UK

Mac Mini or Macbook

I have a late 2014 Mac Mini running Catalina, which has been running Indigo since it was new. I'm getting to the point of not wanting to perform any upgrades in case it doesn't come back. It's also running headless so I have to access it via VNC, which is not the best.

What would be the best new/second hand hardware to run the latest version of Indigo on?

Posted on
Sun May 08, 2022 9:34 am
racarter offline
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Joined: Jun 18, 2016
Location: North Yorkshire, UK

Re: Mac Mini or Macbook

I’m running Indigo on a M1 Mac Mini. Works fine. :)

That was the cheapest ‘new’ solution when the MacBook I was using for Indigo gave up the ghost.

Posted on
Sun May 08, 2022 6:46 pm
ryanbuckner offline
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Joined: Oct 08, 2011
Location: Northern Virginia

Re: Mac Mini or Macbook

i'm running on a 2012 Mac Mini running Catalina on 16GB RAM. I've considered upgrading as well but performance of my Indigo server has no problems .

Posted on
Mon May 09, 2022 5:55 am
jalves offline
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Joined: Jun 16, 2013

Re: Mac Mini or Macbook

No particular suggestion but I think the MacBook has a very slight edge. In the case of a brief power interruption it has essentially a built in UPS. Those occasional flickers on the power line won't cause a reboot.

Running Indigo 2023.2 on a 24" iMac M1), OS X 14.4
Jeff

Posted on
Mon May 09, 2022 9:27 am
norcoscia offline
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Re: Mac Mini or Macbook

I have a small UPS on my indigo mini, I have my mini set up to auto power down if the power is off for more than a min or so - I find that much cheaper than buying a laptop and paying for a screen I don’t need (since I run it remote). Either way works great, it just depends on how much stuff you need to hook up to indigo and how much money you want to spend. - for me the mini worked best for my Indigo setup and budget….

_______
Norm

Posted on
Mon May 09, 2022 11:07 am
eme jota ce offline
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Joined: Jul 09, 2009
Location: SW Florida

Re: Mac Mini or Macbook

+1 for laptop

As I've been transitioning from Indigo toward Z-wave and other protocols, a laptop became more useful than a Mini.

For example, including / excluding Z-Wave devices that are far from the Indigo server's usual location is much easier when brining the laptop close to the device. That combined with the fact that new Z-wave sticks lack the old inclusion / exclusion button and need to be plugged into the Indigo server, a mini wouldn't work well in some situations.

Posted on
Mon May 09, 2022 1:18 pm
pnm offline
Posts: 49
Joined: Dec 03, 2014
Location: Yorkshire, UK

Re: Mac Mini or Macbook

If I get another Mac Mini, I was considering the Astropad Luna, so I can use my iPad as a display when needed, though I'm not sure indigo requires all the power of a new Mac.

I've also got the Mini on a UPS and was going to swap to the latest Z-Stick. I hadn't realised that inclusion used a different method.

Posted on
Mon May 09, 2022 1:50 pm
jay (support) offline
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Re: Mac Mini or Macbook

Z-Wave's NWI feature no longer requires carrying your stick around, which is why the Gen 7 stick doesn't have a physical button. If you have range issues doing an network include, then you may have sporadic issues with the device once included anyway since there isn't a good/reliable signal. I would highly recommend dealing with the range/signal issue rather than trying to carry a stick/Mac around trying to get an include to work...

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Mon May 09, 2022 4:25 pm
norcoscia offline
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Re: Mac Mini or Macbook

For me, remoting into my Indigo mini using my IPAD has worked great - I just take the IPAD to where I’m installing my new device and do all the inclusion work on the IPAD - I don’t use my Indigo machine for anything that requires moving it around or a laptop would have been my go-to set up. My first indigo setup was on a small Mac laptop and it was great, but when that machine became obsolete my retiree budget and all the stuff I needed hooked up drove me to an intel based Mac mini with lots of ports….

_______
Norm

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