Do you have the entire hass-os image running in a VM?

How has home assistant become a resource monster? What kind of integrations are you using aside from ESPHome?

Oh I’m not sure if it actually works. I thought they just made one to fit that slot

I wouldn’t go NUC if you need a PCIe slot. The HP you were talking about would fit the bill though.

I believe they make a Coral that fits where the wifi chip goes too. As long as you are ok ditching the wifi/bt functionality for a TPU. For a server doing image processing that’s almost a no-brainer to me.

I personally graduated from a Rpi3b to an Intel NUC years ago and never looked back. Real RAM slots and Storage options internally and you can get as nice a processor as your budget allows. So my vote is to move to the SFF PC and let your Pi stick around for other projects.