Most smart home failures start with DNS, and nobody notices until everything breaks
… Rather than relying entirely on whatever DNS configuration my ISP router provided, I started using reputable public DNS providers and configured backup servers. …
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The new Maintenance dashboard is the Home Assistant feature I did not know I needed
… And just as you’d expect, I’ve configured a bunch of automations for them. But considering all the outages in my backwater town, it’s not uncommon for the low-priority devices in my arsenal to run out of juice. …
Your old laptop is too weak for Windows 11, but it's strong enough for home lab VMs and containers
… Sure, it can keep your makeshift server active long enough for you to initiate a graceful shutdown when there’s an outage. …
My entire smart home runs on a single Docker container now, and I'm never going back
… I mapped a local folder on my SSD to the /config directory inside the container. …
6 Docker containers I always use on any new home lab workstation
… It also offers effortless stack management, one-click control to clear out an old volume, and direct container access to tweak a config file. …
Your old laptop is too weak for Windows 11, but somehow strong enough for containers, VMs, and a homelab
… Using Proxmox adds a lot of features like backup, hardware allocation configuration, and more, which are useful if you want to fine-tune your server. …
Most smart home problems aren't automation problems, they're network problems in disguise
… Unless there’s an internet outage, you never know about the bad network woes. …
I run Hyper-V instead of VirtualBox on Windows 11, and it's faster and free
… It’s technically possible to pass typical USB devices to VMs in the latter, but it involves a couple of workarounds, while VirtualBox provides simple toggles for configuring USB passthrough. …
Most smart home gear gets worse once you connect it to the cloud
… Remember the AWS outage of October 2025? …
My entire homelab runs on an 8-year-old laptop most people would throw away
… I reside in the countryside, where power outages are frequent. The laptop battery gave me a failover during outages. …