Orange Pi Lite because of its low price and its performance close to a Raspberry Pi 3 is a very good solution to build a home automation server at a lower cost. Domoticz does not officially support this platform. There is therefore no official image. We will have to install Domoticz from the sources. Here is a step by step installation guide very simple to follow.

Configuration used

For this tutorial, I used an Orange Pi Lite (Wi-Fi version) equipped with a 1.2GHz AllWinner H3 microprocessor and 512MB DDR3 memory.

	Orange Pi Lite €12€ (shipping cost, about €3.50 )
	Power 5V – 3A Or USB cable, about €2.50€
	Armbian on 8Go SD Card classe 10 From €6.90

To help you choose the Orange Pi according to your needs, you can read this article which compares all the technical characteristics to a Raspberry Pi 3.

Follow this tutorial to prepare the SD card with Armbian.

Preparing the Armbian System

Before we go into the installation of Domoticz on the Orange Pi, let’s start by making the updates strictly.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Creating a user domoticz

Even if it is not necessary, it is better to create a user domoticz

adduser domoticz

The new user is added to the sudo group to allow it to use this command.

adduser domoticz sudo

Change current user

su domoticz

Ensuite, on modifie la configuration pour autoriser l’utilisateur à exécuter des commandes sudo sans avoir à saisir le mot de passe.

sudo visudo

At the end of the file, insert this new line

domoticz ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Save with CTRL+X then Y.

Installation of Domoticz

Now that everything is ready, change account and run the installation with this curl command.

sudo curl -L install.domoticz.com | bash

This simple command will take care of everything. From the installation of the dependencies to the configuration via small configurators that will appear as the installation.

Configuration start

You can enable or disable the HTTP and HTTPS connections.

Choice of HTTPS port. 443 by default.

The destination folder

It’s over. The IP address of your Orange Pi on your network is shown.

Once the installation is complete, close the last window and wait for the Domoticz service to start before you connect from a browser to your new brand new home box. To test the functioning, I simply connected to an outdoor temperature probe (cold fact!) Which publishes its measurements on a Gateway MySensors ESP8266.

The Orange Pi Lite is a small, really powerful and versatile single board computer that is very well suited for the manufacture of a 100% DIY home automation box. Only restriction, the GPIO which on paper is compatible with that of Raspberry (model B). But in practice, difficult to implement. If you have positive feedback and info about it, feel free to share your experience in the comments. However, a large number of home automation accessories use other protocols (radio most often) making the GPIO less essential.

Source: https://www.domoticz.com/wiki/Installing_and_running_Domoticz_on_CubieBoard2