Hardware & Deployment

KEEPIQ doesn’t need a powerful server sitting in the corner.

It is built around a simple principle: use computing power when something is happening — and stay quiet when it isn’t.

Add an item. Scan a barcode. Update a location. Search your inventory. KEEPIQ responds, then goes back to sleep. There are no continuous server-side polling loops keeping the processor busy; on our Raspberry Pi testing, idle CPU usage sits around 0–2%.

That makes inexpensive — and existing — hardware a perfectly reasonable home for KEEPIQ.

KEEPIQ itself is small.

The Node server uses roughly 90–140 MB of RAM while idle, with brief increases to around 250 MB during heavier operations such as a CSV import or a photo upload. A local PostgreSQL database of KEEPIQ’s size needs another 60–120 MB. CPU returns close to idle as soon as the operation finishes.

Speech recognition, barcode decoding and photo compression all run in the browser, on the phone or kiosk you are holding — not on the server. The Pi only ever receives the resulting text, code or compressed image.

Scan. Add. Find. Update. Sleep.

Recommended hardware

A dedicated Raspberry Pi 5 is not a requirement for a normal KEEPIQ installation. For most homes, workshops and small businesses a Raspberry Pi 4 is more than sufficient.

Experimental, not yet validated: a Pi Zero 2 W (512 MB) may run a headless install, but we have not measured it on real hardware. Treat it as expected-to-work, not recommended.

Headless is the lightest way to run KEEPIQ.

Install it on the Raspberry Pi and reach it from the devices you already own — phone, tablet, laptop, desktop. The Pi runs the service; the interface runs in your browser, which keeps the server footprint extremely small.

Want a dedicated screen?

KEEPIQ can also become a permanent inventory station: attach a touchscreen and launch it in kiosk mode for a fixed interface in a workshop, storage room, office or garage.

The backend stays just as light. The additional cost is the Chromium browser the kiosk uses — typically 350–600 MB of RAM, highest when the 3D floor plan is on screen. For this configuration we recommend 4 GB.

On a Pi shared with Home Assistant the installer defaults kiosk mode to off, and refuses it when total installed RAM (MemTotal in /proc/meminfo) is under 3000 MiB. You can force it with KIOSK=yes.

Already running Home Assistant? KEEPIQ can join it.

KEEPIQ is prepared to coexist with Home Assistant on the same Raspberry Pi, using hardware that is already running in your home instead of asking for a second computer. This is shipped today, not planned.

Detection happens during installation: the installer grades the evidence before it writes anything — a Home Assistant service unit, a running container, a Core virtual environment — and applies its coexistence profile automatically.

Supported today

What the coexistence profile does

• KEEPIQ runs on port 8080 (8081 if that one is taken); Home Assistant keeps 8123.
• The Wi-Fi supervisor and the KEEPIQ-SETUP hotspot are not installed, so your network configuration is left exactly as Home Assistant set it up.
• An already-running PostgreSQL is reused instead of installing a second server.
• The Home Assistant address is pre-filled — you only paste a long-lived token.

Typical memory budget — Pi 4B, 4 GB, headless

For a headless installation, where phones, tablets and computers reach KEEPIQ over the local network, a Pi 4 with 4 GB leaves comfortable room for both systems.

Storage note: when Home Assistant, KEEPIQ, the database and nightly backups all write to the same SD card, use a USB SSD. This is about flash write endurance, not speed — the installer prints it as a warning, never as a blocker.

Home Assistant OS

Home Assistant OS is managed as a sealed appliance, so it deliberately does not allow shell installs. Rather than working around that architecture, KEEPIQ will ship a dedicated Home Assistant Add-on for native HA OS deployment.