Has it worked before?
I would log into the Pi and check basic networking. Make sure it has an IP, DNS, and can reach your local LAN.
First, try pinging for the device. Then SSH if that works. If you can't even ping, use nmap to find the IP on the LAN. It could be using a new IP due to DHCP moving it.
It should be plenty powerful enough for most tasks, just keep in mind the SD bus is crazy slow on a Raspberry Pi, and I would recommend using an EVO+ SD card only as it will perform way better than anything else. Even the Sandisk Extremes are much slower. When you are dealing with pitiful I/O performance even in ideal conditions, the best card makes a big difference.
If you need help connecting to it, feel free to hit me up on Discord.
The Pi worked before with a different SD card until something screwed up. I can ping it, but you need the Home Assistant running to get ssh access. I suspect the card could be faulty, so I will try another. The one I have been trying was supposed to be better (Sandisk Extreme Pro).
I think people have issues over time with the cards filling up or struggling with lots of writes. I am wondering if I could hook up a USB hard drive for logs and the database it uses. It's a learning experience, but it seems to get complicated quickly.
Thanks for the offer, I may be in touch.
You can plug the card into a windows machine and turn on ssh just by touching (making empty file) the file “ssh” on the boot partition.