Homelab

I recently let AI review my Unifi setup (this will be a separate blog post). One consequence was that I tightened security on my main network by enforcing WPA3. For older devices I already had a separate IoT less secure network on 2.4 GHz and WPA2, so in theory this should have been a simple migration. In practice, it wasn’t. Several IoT devices were still connected to the main network and didn’t support WPA3, so they had to be moved. Modern devices are easy to reconfigure because they use Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) for provisioning. Only one of mine — the Withings Body Cardio — was new enough to support BLE but still old enough to lack WPA3. That device moved over without much trouble. ...

I think there is value in sharing what software you use—and, more importantly, how you use it. I often think that real life usage examples are easier to understand than presentations. This is not sponsored – these are simply my impressions of tools I use. Tailscale – a better VPN, or a virtual intranet? My high-level explanation of Tailscale is that it is essentially a virtual intranet – a tailnet – that connects your devices no matter where they are. It also includes several useful services, and the free tier cover my use cases. ...

After more than a decade of running Synology NAS devices in my home, I’m making a significant change to my setup. This post explores why and what I am will be doing. Why Have a NAS? I’ve had multiple Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices in my home over the last 15 years - Synology boxes for more than 10 years. A NAS can serve many needs like: It can replace OneDrive, DropBox, iCloud, Google Drive. It can host your media Automatic backups of computers Depending on the NAS, the more capable Synology supports lots of applications for domain management, office work, and run Docker containers. It can provide disks to other machines using iSCSI and more that I have not explored. ...

It started when I bought a new IKEA smart device that supports Matter over Threads. Getting this up and running with my Home Assistant running on a Proxmox server should be easy, right? That was the original idea. I ended up doing the following. Buy new anteanna for Threads and try to access it from a VM on Proxmox. I should probably upgrade Proxmox 8 to 9 before adding the anthenna? I should do a backup of all VMs on Proxmox (I am very glad I did this) Start upgrade - it fails. It does not boot - probably caused by a combination of secure boot and unsigned drivers that the proxmox installer warned me about. I don’t try to troubleshoot - I reinstall Proxmox 9 from scratch. This is actually a good thing, I got a few more settings proxmox settings right this time (better disk/filesystem) Move the Proxtmox server - if I clean up the server, why not improve its location as well. Restore VMs - this works very well. Add antenna, try to pair the IKEA device - It fails Current status Does the IKEA device work - Not yet ...

Smart Home stuff is complex. This is a few things I learned the hard way. Grouping devices and group names There are two types of smart devices. There are things like Alexa, Siri or Google Home that talk to humans. And there are things/apps/services that controls devices, like Hue, Netatmo and Roborock. Almost all of them can manage groups of devices. You want to the human facing devices to own groups with simple easy names. ...

No,it is not to isolate malicious devices! It is because you have lots of “old” device that does not handle and will not connect to your main combined WiFi 5/6 network. You need a 2.4 Ghz network. I have only managed to get a stable connection to Raspbery Pi Zero on the 2.4 Ghz only network.