That makes more sense.

Oh. Well then.

Nabu Casa is still encouraging people to buy what’s left of Yellow stock.

Yellow is based on the Pi 4 compute module. I wonder if that’s going out of production soon.

The other issue with this - If you lose access to that one system, you’re SOL. It’s a single point of failure.

I use Aegis, automatically backed up every time a new key is added. Was using Authy for a while, but they’re going down the enshittification hole, so I dumped them.

The point of 2FA is “something you have” and “something you know” to enter a secured system.

If you put both of those into one system that is accessible by one password, the whole concept is defeated.

Not only did I need to install the DIYHue add-on to simulate a Hue bridge, I also needed to download the Philips Hue app, or some 3rd party app called Hue essentials, to connect the smart plug (via the DIYHue bridge add-on?) to the home assistant?

So, here’s where Home Assistant (HA) can get confusing - there are multiple ways to accomplish multiple things.

The integration you installed is meant to integrate an existing Hue ecosystem with HA. You don’t have (nor want, I presume) a Hue ecosystem. You want direct control of the bulb via HA.

Phillips devices generally utilize a wireless protocol called “ZigBee”. It’s similar to wifi and Bluetooth in that it runs within the 2.4 GHz frequency band, but it requires a ZigBee antenna, also known as a “coordinator”. One of those can be picked up for around $30, and you only need one - ZigBee is a “mesh” network. Mains-powered ZigBee devices act as repeaters to automatically expand the network. It works exceptionally well, but you will feel it if you have lots of ZigBee devices and use 2.4GHz wifi.

It was a while ago, I don’t remember much of it unfortunately. Only the idiots.

Syncthing is incredible. I use it on my devices, and everything is also backed up to my NAS.

This, so much. I remember when Louis told everyone about it, people (mostly Reddit) were so nitpicky over every minor detail.

How fast/reliable/cheap are USB drive enclosures?

For a NAS? Not very. Mine drops out periodically. That’s part of why I’m building another machine to house everything. The USB enclosure will not see “production” use after that.

As long as the NAS software doesn’t require much overhead, I’ve got an old laptop that should be able to handle things well enough if that would work.

Old laptops are alright for running services; not very good at holding data. And the battery is a fire risk unless you have a model that allows the battery charge to be limited. If not - run it without the battery. I killed a few laptop batteries doing this before I finally figured that out.

Plus, then I could still grab one of these cheap Win 10 machine as a server box to run all of the services to go along with the NAS.

IMO - Run the NAS as only a NAS. It’ll save you a lot of headache and you won’t lose all of your data in case an errant service takes down your machine. Also - use Linux. There are multiple Linux distributions catered specifically for use as a NAS, like TrueNAS, OpenMediaVault, and others. I use OMV personally, and create NFS mounts for my other servers to use for their data storage needs.

First and foremost: “NAS” is just an acronym for Network Attached Storage. A NAS is not a specific product. Don’t fall into that trap.

What should I be looking for in a used PC for this sort of use case? Specs, etc.?

You can run NAS software on pretty much anything. My current NAS is a Mac Mini 2014 with a 4-bay USB drive enclosure. I’m in the process of building a more reliable NAS out of an old HP ProLiant ML110 G2 case - which is fully ATX compatible, strangely enough - with modern(ish) guts. It’s got 10 drive bays, too.

Ideally, you want a case that can hold multiple 3.5" drives, plus a boot drive. Never boot from the data drives.

Specs-wise, pretty much anything from the last decade will work just fine. My Mac Mini runs an i5-4308U, which is essentially a low-power laptop CPU.

I think I’d like to do at least 3 hard drives in some sort of RAID config (whatever that is), but room for more would be welcome.

Good idea. Couple things:

• Do not use hardware RAID. Linux natively supports software RAID via mdadm. I’ve moved my software RAID5 array between multiple PCs and it’s been recognized as such by all of them.
• RAID IS NOT A BACKUP! RAID only prevents data loss in case of drive failure (with a mirrored setup, or something with parity - losing a drive in a RAID0 array means you’re fucked). RAID does not prevent data loss from malicious incidents or mass deletion.

Does anyone know where I would be finding these PCs? How would I know what a good price is? Are there centralized websites that sell this sort of used tech, or should I mostly be scouring Facebook Marketplace for local businesses getting rid of stuff on the cheap (in which case I’ll need to know what specs I’m looking for and how to price them reliably)?

eBay has taken much of my money for my server projects.

If anyone has thoughts on OS change as well please comment.

Linux.

If I had the means, I would buy a car with that “feature” just to hardwire it myself. Out of spite.

I have an EE degree, I know how to properly wire things in a car (done it safely for decades) - heated seats are no different.

No, they often aren’t. Any that are, are not going to be permanent, either (see what Chamberlain did with their garage openers).

My personal take: unless it can function as a “smart” device without a constant connection to the internet, a company-provided HA integration is kinda useless.

Show me where the spec sheet for a typical smart appliance tells me if it has a good integration with Home Assistant, whether I can flash it with ESPHome, etc.

People who use and develop integrations for Home Assistant.

The only ports I have open are 80 and 443, and 80 just redirects to 443.

I also have a BeamMP server that has to have a port open because that’s just how it works, but that VM sits on its own DMZ’d VLAN, and I only open the port when I’m actively playing the game.

Mini PCs have more than enough oomph to handle what you’re doing. Almost my entire home lab runs on 7th/8th gen mini PCs, which includes Plex and Jellyfin (working on migrating everything over to JF). Plex only ever threw a fit when my wifi started getting crowded with wifi cameras and zigbee devices. I fiddled with the channels, removed one of my 2.4 SSIDs entirely, and now everything is happy again.

It was often the automated things that I completely forgot about. I have ADHD, so if it’s not accessible in a reasonable way (where I don’t have to always google specific commands to find basic info on my own machine), then it gets lost in the memory hole. I know that a service is running, but would forget what it is.

These days I have it pretty down-pat. Hardware is labeled, static IPs are set for “critical” VMs and LXCs (because I’m shit at DNS and still trying to get that down), and things are actually somewhat documented in an easy-to-find place.