[humanistbot]

Mostly agreed, but "sitting idle most of the time" isn't quite the right metric. The question is if it can handle the peak loads. And a pi zero can run pihole and a rain gauge.

I don't plan to upgrade my rpi4 running homeassistant, a Plex video streaming server, a tailscale VPN exit node, and a few other minor services.

Plex on the rpi4 can't keep up transcoding 4k video to 1080p, maybe the rpi5 can, but I don't personally need that. Many Plex users do need 4k transcoding though.

Also, I have tried to use the pi4 as a desktop replacement, and I just found it too slow for the modern bloated world of webapps. All the little things just added up to too much and I gave up. The pi5 might be good enough though, but with all the peripherals and pains of arm64, a used old laptop is still probably better on the price/performance ratio.