I hadn’t updated my desktop computer in over a decade. Didn’t really use it. At work, I don’t really touch the code myself anymore. At some point, I got the itch and wanted to do something. So I started with Home Assistant to automate my home. Turn the lights on/off, set up scenes for dimming the lights when watching a movie, that kind of stuff. Bought a small Intel NUC and used it for a while. Also installed Adguard to block ads from the games my kids play on their ipads and from the TV streaming services. Game changer. I got tired of every service I used wanting to phone home, upsell me, or train a model on my family’s data. So I started replacing more things. Then I installed Frigate and set up a doorbell camera and a camera in the yard. Mostly to capture the elusive deer wandering through our yard at night.
As I was tinkering, the small Intel NUC became busyier. And sometimes thinks broke for a while. When my family couldn’t even get through a single episode of Star Trek anymore because adguard was down and there were too many ads, I knew it was time to upgrade my hardware and get a more serious setup.
So I traded my old Desktop computer parts on Ebay and used the money to buy other parts. Slowly built another, more upgraded desktop which I could use as a home server. Now, my stack runs on Proxmox and Docker. Home Assistant handles automation. Frigate watches the cameras and does object detection locally. Immich replaced Google Photos. Paperless-ngx eats our mail and spits out searchable PDFs. Mealie keeps our recipes. AdGuard filters DNS. Nothing leaves the house unless I tell it to. And its separated in critical infrastructure like AdGuard and nice-to-haves like Immich.
Its not something that is set up easy. And it’s also never done. There is always stuff to tinker, maintain, update. But it works, and it keeps my mind busy. That server is less of a single project and more of the foundation everything else on this site sits on top of.