If you ' re going to provide your own hardware , be it an old PC or a Pi 3 or such , then you only need the softwarecontrolsoftware . The Pi specific version is absolutely not worth the money . Spend the extra $ 50 during the 50 % off sale and get the regular HS 3 version . It ' ll run on a Pi 3 using mono , and isn ' t limited to five plugins like the Pi version . If you ' re not buying the hardware from them you ' d need a USB zwave stick of some sort , I use a wave . meindex . php ? id 28 from zwave . me . No real reason , it ' s just the one I bought . HomeSeer is a . NET app which provides a web interface . You do everything through there , from managing devices to creating events . The only downside is that while expandability through plugins is there , many will cost , and they ' re usually not cheap . The Nest and Ecobee thermostat plugins are $ 40 each , for example . Though they ' ll often have free trails usually 30 days or so so you can actually kick the tires and make sure they ' ll work .