Calaos OS is a complete, ready-to-use operating system that you install on a computer dedicated to your home automation. That computer becomes your Calaos server: it drives your lights, shutters and heating, and answers the mobile applications.
You do not need to install an operating system and then add the Calaos software on top: everything is already assembled and preconfigured. You copy the system onto a USB stick, boot the computer from it, and install.
Everything is already there. The Calaos server and the additional services (MQTT, Zigbee, measurement history, graphs, DMX lighting…) are installed and configured to work together. You have nothing to assemble yourself.
Updates can be undone. Before every software installation, Calaos OS automatically records the state of the system. If an update goes wrong, you can restart on the previous state. This is explained in Rolling back.
Your configuration lives in one place. All your settings — those of Calaos and those of the services — live in a single folder, which makes backups simple. See Backing up your configuration.
A computer that will stay powered on permanently, a USB stick, and a way to connect it to your network. The details are on the What do I need? page.
A touchscreen is optional. With a screen you get the local Calaos Home interface, which displays your home and allows a few settings. Without a screen, everything is configured remotely from another computer.
This documentation only covers Calaos v4. Previous versions (v1, v2, v3) are not covered.
If you are new to Calaos, follow the Getting started chapter: it guides you from installation to your first automation rule.
If you want to install the server right now, go straight to Installation.
Calaos OS is built on Debian. The application components (Calaos server, MQTT, Zigbee, databases…) run in Podman containers, isolated from each other, which allows them to be updated independently.
The disk is formatted with Btrfs, a filesystem able to photograph the state of the system at a given moment for almost no disk space. This is what makes rollbacks possible. The details are described in Under the hood.
The complete software architecture is presented in the Calaos software stack chapter.