Tag: homelab

Zeek for Home Lab Forensics

Zeek (formerly Bro) turns network traffic into structured logs you can actually query. The IDS that doesn't shout — it documents. Setup and use in a home lab.

SAS vs SATA in 2026: When SAS Still Wins

SAS drives are not dead — they are cheap on eBay right now. Here is exactly when used SAS3 hardware beats SATA for home lab storage builds on a budget.

Photon vs ESPHome: ESP Firmware Compared

Particle Photon 2 vs ESPHome for ESP32 projects: cloud lock-in, OTA updates, Home Assistant integration, and which firmware wins for self-hosters long-term.

Zigbee Coordinator Showdown: Sonoff vs ConBee vs SkyConnect

Sonoff Zigbee Dongle Plus-E vs ConBee III vs SkyConnect — pick the right Zigbee USB coordinator for your Home Assistant home lab or apartment setup in 2026.

KVM/QEMU/libvirt: CLI Workflows

virt-manager is fine, but real homelab automation lives on the command line. virt-install, virsh, cloud-init — provision VMs in seconds, not click-by-click.

BirdNET-Pi for Self-Hosted Bird Identification

Turn a Raspberry Pi and a cheap USB mic into a self-hosted bird ID station using BirdNET-Pi and Cornell ML audio models running entirely locally offline.

Scrypted vs Frigate for Self-Hosted Cameras

Scrypted bridges your IP cameras to HomeKit and Google Home. Frigate adds AI object detection on your own hardware. Here's how to pick — or run both at once.

ESPresense: Room-Level Bluetooth Presence in Home Assistant

Track which room you're in with cheap ESP32 nodes and BLE signal distance — real room-level presence for Home Assistant automations that actually work.

Hetzner vs DigitalOcean vs Vultr

Picking a cheap VPS for home-lab overflow — off-site backups, public endpoints, CGNAT escape. Real tradeoffs, honest picks per scenario.

Plex Meta Manager: Posters, Collections, Sanity

Stop staring at a Plex library that looks like a clearance bin. Kometa (formerly Plex Meta Manager) automates collections, posters, overlays, and bulk ratings.

Jellyseerr Tagging Workflows for Real Libraries

Stop guessing whose request is clogging your 4K library. Jellyseerr tags + Sonarr/Radarr + Maintainerr = real per-user quota control that actually holds up.

Whisparr & Mylar3: Specialty *arr Apps Explained

Sonarr handles TV. Radarr handles movies. But who handles comics and adult content? Meet Mylar3 and Whisparr — the *arr apps nobody talks about, until now.