I do something similar with node red and some lights. It’s all based off of person.xxxxxxx locations.

If I was going to try and do something based on if a vehicle was used then I would probably attach Bluetooth trackers to the car and bike and use those for particular automations. There will be a little bit of a delay while the system before the door opens or closes until they connect up and it will require a Bluetooth AP connected to HomeAssistant but it gives finer grained control. But you would need to do checks that both your phone and something else entered the area to prevent the door from also unlocking.

Or you could use use you phone as a Bluetooth beacon/tracker and set something based on its last seen location before leaving.

Setting up with each device tracked also gives you the opportunity to give warnings if they leave without your phone as well as to use crowd tracking if they do.

The HomeAssistant app can pull data from a lot of smartphone sensors but it depends on what the sensors are vs how useful they will be. I tend to use the battery level sensor on my wall mounted devices that are used as HomeAssistant controllers. This way I can turn a smart switch on and off that controls the power brick that charges the tablet. It turns on at 30 percent and off at 80.

I also setup custom dashboards for devices based on location, near a door has camera feeds for multiple cameras and controls for lights and switches nearby. Master bedroom has automations that can kill every light in the house with feeds for a front door and back door.

https://wordpress.org/plugins/exmage-wp-image-links/ might fit the bill

When you are running chown what is the exact command you are running and from what directory? Where are you getting your instructions? What error are you getting exactly? Did you verify that the directory has the correct owner before continuing? What are the directory permissions? What are the directory permissions supposed to be?

It’s impossible to troubleshoot without the information.

Honestly, I suggest going onto ebay and buying an old server hardware. My TrueNAS and OpnSense boxes as well as my 10G switch and my 48 port 1G switch were purchased used on ebay. My TrueNAS came from UnixSurplus https://www.ebay.com/str/unixsurpluscom and I have purchased hardware for others from them. They list their TrueNAS ready systems under FreeNAS but it doesn’t matter, the HBA’s are flashed to IT mode already so all you need to do is add drives and install an OS.

Yes 10G can be useful if you have a lot of users or transfer large files. I edit video and I store it all on my server.

Yes 8GB of RAM will be limiting, ZFS needs a minimum of 16GB to function correctly.

The switches and AP’s shouldn’t care what the router OS is. I use OpnSense, my 10G switch is a Quanta LB6M, my 1G switch is a Dell Power Connect 5548, I have 2 TP-Link EAP650 AP’s with a TP-Link Omada OC200 controller and will be adding another AP when my upstairs is finished.

For POE I just use an injector with my Power Connect. My AP’s, the OC200, and multiple cameras are all POE.

I’ve found that if the equipment powers up and works for a week it will continue to do so for a long time, I’ve used the Quanta LB6M since 2016 or so.

I will have to take another look. I’ve seen it before but didn’t see anything about Lemmy and such.

I use Reolink. Some of the older cameras don’t work as well but setting them to reboot on a schedule works pretty well.

Frigate is not able to control the PTZ function of my RLC-823S1 but the Duo 3V is amazing. I would like to be able to track people who step onto my porch so I can get an image of their vehicle or direction of travel, but I mainly just use it to look around if I hear a noise.

Hardware routers can be killed for many reasons. Age and an inability to upgrade them to suit current needs is the biggest one. OEM’s do this fairly quickly as they build devices with the resources to work for today and maybe tomorrow. After their product is no longer made they want it to be obsolete not long after so they can claim they can support is no longer viable. Then you but another router and they make money.

OpenWRT tries to augment and support devices for as long as possible but at the same time the hardware limitations still exist and often the storage will no longer support the latest version due to the size of the new version.

As far as when that will happen depends on multiple factors that have the ability to change at any time. There viable be a massive flaw in a portion of the software that requires a huge rewrite and the addition of code that will make the software too large to fit.

Sometimes someone will create a version with less used features available so that it can still be used but it’s a losing battle

If you want true longevity repurpose an old computer into a router. OpnSense is what I use and recommend. Add in something like a TP-Link EAP650 or two and you have a rock solid platform that can handle a lot more and last much longer. Add Power Over Ethernet (POE) along with an Omada controller and you can position the AP in a place where it will work the best for your use. You can have enough access points to have a full signal anywhere even if your place is the size of the Louvre. When new technology comes out you can upgrade the AP’s as needed when needed and upgrade the router as well in a similar fashion.

It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while. Honestly I want to host a Lemmy instance and my own peertube instance.

Two things are stopping me. I don’t understand certain points of how things interact in the software or how to set it up properly to self host and be comfortable in it’s security. I barely understand docker and some other stuff. It sucks because I understood how to use DOS at an around 14 by reading the manual. I also don’t have the funding to do so in a way that I would feel comfortable at this point. I don’t fully trust co-mingling my home services with web services due to the security risks.

I’ve never used them either. But I’ve seen pictures and as long as they are setup correctly the devices buttons are still able to be pressed and turned on manually.

I personally would just find something and add an esp32 in to augment control.

But a really simple solution would be to add a switchbot or something similar. Just be sure that whatever heater you pick up has a switch you can easily control.

I keep a monitor in my server closet and bring a USB wireless mini keyboard if I need to physically access something but the majority of my hardware has KVM built in.

Older commercial hardware uses more power than a mini computer in a homelab but has many advantages like often coming with more ram, more powerful (and often multiple) CPU’s, SAS backplanes, plus empty PCIe slots that can support GPU’s and other devices.

Yep. I’m using sata drives in a SAS backplane that has similar connectors soldered to a board.

The exact backplane I am using is: https://files.ekmcdn.com/itinstock/images/supermicro-sas846a-24-bay-3.5-lff-sas-sata-hdd-4u-backplane-bpn-sas-846a-4-93512-p.jpg

The cable connections don’t mean anything. SAS is multichannel and with expanders (expanders work like ethernet switches) one controller can interface with hundreds of drives.

The cable you have pictured is called a breakout cable that dedicates one of the cards individual channels to a drive. If you plug one drive into the cable and spin it up no big deal, add another later on same thing, move a dive from one cable to the other it’s all good. The cables are just electrical data connections to the controller. With ZFS you can even migrate compatible drives from SAS to SATA controllers (SAS only work on SAS, but sata works on either) in the system and they will still function just fine in a pool. For that matter I’ve heard of people mixing SAS, SATA, and USB drives in the same vDev (not generally recommended) and things worked.

Can you. Sure, it’s an Arm based cpu. But you may have to put in some work to make things function correctly.

https://linuxvox.com/blog/best-arm-linux-distro/ is a good place to start.

As stated the outlet should be protected by GFCI so the moisture causing a short circuit or a personal electrical hazard shouldn’t be an issue.

However from a humidity standpoint with the electronic components, most company’s will say something to the effect of no more that a certain humidity operating environment. Using the plug in the bathroom could theoretically shorten the life of the plug or cause undesirable operation.

If you own your home you may be able to get one of the in the wiring box controllers like the Sonoff ZBMINIR2’s and use that to switch the outlet. This will absolutely depend on a couple factors and I am not an electrician. I also haven’t worked with the GFCI outlets much but regular outlets can have the plugs separated with one of them being always on and the other being switched. I have split an outlet and will probably do something similar in some others and plan to have one in my bathroom for charging my toothbrush and shaver. With the cover in place there should be little to no change in humidity in the box.

I am using AFCI/GFCI breakers on all bedroom and wet location circuits so it’s not an issue for me. That is also an option since you would still keep the required protection and be able to use an old school outlet. I’ve seen and replaced the GFCI outlets that begin to catch fire when they are heavily loaded, I also wonder if they die seemingly for no reason due to bathroom humidity getting inside through the prong openings. Either way using the breakers let’s me use the heavy duty outlets in the bathroom since ladies and their hair tools have no issues with the outlets being loose all the time and they are rated for a full 20 amps for the flame throwing hair dryer.

Dealt with something similar with my rgb bulbs in my bedroom. Flashed ESPHome on the bulbs and since they were on light switches I set them to come on as a shortcut. Need the light on and don’t have your phone? Just flip the switch off then back on. Have a power flicker or an outage you get bright lights from 7 rgb bulbs set to full blast. Wake up to burn your retinas bright light at random times of the night.

I use the bulbs as a wakeup sequence that shows weather via color and temperature as well. Then some others light up in order 25% every couple minutes. Then turn off after a certain amount of time. If I sleep through it I’m generally sick or that tired and need the extra rest, I use my phone’s alarm function for the have to be up and moving fallback.

Sorry. I’m just passing the information along. I would suggest contacting the Open Home Foundation. https://www.openhomefoundation.org/

For the money the Samsung A9+ is tough to beat IMHO.

11 inch touch screen in a slim package. Get a cheap jelly case run a couple screws into the wall, slip the tablet in place, route a charging cable.

No matter what you buy or build it will eventually be obsolete and need to be replaced. A decent tablet will last around 8 to 10 years as a wall mounted dashboard. The A9+ can be found for around 170 right now and the next prime sale will likely see it around 150. So that’s around 15 to 20 per year of use and all you need to do is either install the HomeAssistant app or setup Fully Kiosk.