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A Raspberry Pi can run an always-on service, but a year-long “untouched” run depends on what the Pi was doing, how it was powered and connected, and what “untouched” means. The headline alone doesn’t identify the Pi model, operating system, job, or maintenance history, so it can’t establish those details—or prove that Raspberry Pis generally run for a year without attention.
Home Assistant is one documented example of a service designed to stay on. Its Raspberry Pi guide offers practical setup advice, while Raspberry Pi’s own documentation explains two important limits: a bootloader watchdog is not a cure for every system hang, and sudden power loss can corrupt storage.
What “untouched for a year” needs to mean
An uptime anecdote is most useful when it names the job and the setup. A Pi serving a simple local task may have different storage and maintenance needs from one keeping a database or smart-home configuration. To interpret a year-long run, readers need to know the model, operating system, storage, power supply, network connection, and whether software updates or reboots happened during that year.
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Home Assistant shows what an always-on Pi setup can involve
Home Assistant describes its software as intended for a small device that stays on all the time. Its Raspberry Pi installation guide recommends a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 with at least 2 GB of RAM, an A2-class microSD card of at least 32 GB, and an appropriate power supply. It recommends Ethernet when possible, describing it as more reliable than Wi-Fi, and warns that some mobile chargers may not supply suitable power. These are recommendations for Home Assistant’s Pi installation, not universal requirements for every Raspberry Pi project. Home Assistant’s Raspberry Pi installation guide
The guide recommends Home Assistant OS for most users. It is an embedded, minimal operating system that includes Home Assistant Core and Supervisor. If you already own suitable hardware, repurposing a Pi can be a reasonable route; Home Assistant also lists a mini PC, NUC, or virtual machine as possible hardware choices. For people who prefer a plug-and-play option, it recommends Home Assistant Green. These options are not evidence of equivalent uptime or performance. Home Assistant’s hardware FAQ
Rank #2
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Power, storage, and recovery are separate reliability questions
Power loss can put stored data at risk
Raspberry Pi’s hardware documentation identifies sudden power-downs as a possible cause of storage corruption. A suitable supply and a safe shutdown matter when the device is expected to keep running unattended; an apparent stretch of uptime does not, on its own, show how well a system would recover from an interruption. Raspberry Pi computer hardware documentation
The bootloader watchdog has a limited role
Raspberry Pi documents a bootloader watchdog that can help recover if the operating system fails to start. Monitoring stops once the Arm CPU starts, however, so this feature should not be treated as protection against every operating-system hang or service failure. It addresses a specific boot-stage problem, not every reason an always-on device might stop responding. Raspberry Pi computer hardware documentation
Rank #3
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A read-only overlay trades persistence for fewer writes
Raspberry Pi’s overlay filesystem option makes the root filesystem read-only and keeps runtime changes in RAM. Changes outside the boot partition are lost after power-off or reboot. That can suit a system whose runtime changes do not need to persist, but it can conflict with a service that must save configuration or other data. Persistent state needs an appropriate writable location. Raspberry Pi configuration documentation
Always on does not have to mean cloud-dependent
For a Home Assistant setup using supported local protocols and automations, Home Assistant says local functions continue working if the internet connection or a vendor’s cloud goes down. That is useful for a home service intended to keep doing its job locally, but it is not a blanket guarantee for every smart-home device, integration, or Raspberry Pi workload. Home Assistant’s reliability FAQ
Rank #4
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What a year-long run can—and cannot—show
A long uninterrupted run can be a compelling account of one device doing one job in one setup. Without details of that setup and its maintenance, it does not show which hardware or storage was used, whether updates occurred, or how the Pi would behave after a failure. The sources cited here provide practical setup guidance and explain specific reliability limits; they do not establish a general probability that a Raspberry Pi will run untouched for a year.
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Best Value
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