The ESP32 makes more sense than a Raspberry Pi for your smart home
…Even when you run Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi, it’s still a computer running your smart home hub. Meanwhile, ESP32 is exactly what you need to build a device layer…
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I ran Cyberpunk 2077 inside a Proxmox VM on a mini PC, and it actually worked
…I wasn’t borrowing a desktop GPU or building around some giant tower with spare headroom everywhere. This was a mini PC doing double duty as a home lab host and, when…
I’d do these 5 things differently if I started self-hosting LLMs today
…or connecting it to Home Assistant to manage my workspace environment, the goal is zero friction. Instead of copy-pasting text back and forth, I focus on building bridges between my local…
Your WireGuard setup is harder than it needs to be, and WireGUI fixes it
…4 reasons you need to use WireGuard instead of OpenVPN for connecting to your home lab remotely If you have a home lab and want to connect to it remotely, WireGuard is…
I run Hyper-V instead of VirtualBox on Windows 11, and it's faster and free
…Better yet, Hyper-V also pairs with Windows Server setups, and although there are some caveats to using it in a dedicated home lab, this setup is really fun to experiment with…
A used Lenovo M720q destroys the Raspberry Pi 5 in every way that matters
…His expertise broadly covers computers, smartphones, game consoles, headphones, smart home products, browsers, and apps. Sign in to your XDA account Building a home lab to handle all your services and experiments…
N100 mini PCs quietly killed the Raspberry Pi for home servers
…Likewise, the N100 is resilient enough to handle hardcore Home Assistant setups involving dozens of automation chains, smart gizmos, and integrations. Of course, a Raspberry Pi 5 could serve as a decent…
Home Assistant on bare metal works great — until it becomes your entire home's infrastructure
…It's the hardware, Home Assistant OS, and the familiar web UI. For many users of the platform, this is an ideal setup. Home Assistant is designed, above all else, to be…
A used office PC is the best media center upgrade I've made in years
…Sign in to your XDA account I’ve spent a long time trying to build the perfect media center at home. I wanted a setup that lets me access everything on my…
The smart home upgrade nobody wants to do is labeling every cable and device
…The right time to label is before you think you need to At the very start of your smart home Small setups feel manageable without labels. Five or six devices, a single…