Homelab Runner
(Alternatively titled "Of Coaches and Cartoons")
This week our home's Pi-Hole suddenly stopped working. I'm not sure exactly what happened, the week before I attempted to upgrade it to Pi-Hole 6 and the upgrade failed because the Raspberry Pi was on a previous OS version. My best guess is that the system actually stopped working at that time, and the lag for DNS updates, etc., made it only noticeable this week.
So, the past few days I've spent a fair bit of time completely redoing our home infrastructure. I did a complete clean install and upgrade on that Raspberry Pi to the new Raspberry Pi OS and even more than that, really diving into Docker.
Previously my installs were standalone and not containerized. Now I've got it all running through Docker. Docker is a tool which contains these applications in their own environments.
So, the infrastructure in the house is run on basically two systems:
Pep (named for Pep Guardiola, I name my Raspberry Pis after coaches.) - Pep previously ran two things: Pi-Hole and Home Assistant. Now, I am just using it for Pi-Hole.
Pi-Hole is a fantastic tool that you can integrate in your network to block ads, trackers and more. The way it works is you tell your router to put every DNS request through your Pi-Hole, and it filters these requests and basically tells your router that the problematic URLs don't resolve as if they didn't exist. It's like uBlock or other ad blocking tools in your browser, except for your entire network.
You can subscribe to URL lists like ad blockers in your browser, etc. It's a huge quality of life improvement to have that blocking across your network, not just your computer, but also TVs, iPads, etc.
The other machine is Marvin (named for Marvin the Martian, I name my desktop PCs after Looney Tunes characters.) It was my old desktop PC and has been working as the house's media machine, and now, I'm having it do more.
Previously it just ran Plex, an internal streaming app for watching movies and TV. Now I have it running Home Assistant, and I am experimenting with a few more things.
Home Assistant is a tool that manages home automation. Theoretically Pep could run both Pi-Hole and Home Assistant, and did in the past, but I am beginning to question if the Raspbery Pi for Pep may be going out on me since I've had it for six/seven years. So, I am leaving Pep to do one job and expecting it to do it well, and putting Marvin (which is leagues more powerful than Raspberry Pis) to do more.
The truth is I'm only barely using Home Assistant. It could do so much more. I basically have it to run two automations for lights around the house.
So, more than Plex and HA, here are some of the new things I'm experimenting with on Marvin.
- DoneTick - A shared to-do / task app. I envision being used by Katie and me for house chores, etc.
- Actual Budget - This is a finance management app, however I have been coming up a core issue
Actual Budget is supposed to be fantastic. However, I can't get it to work yet. The issue I am facing is that when it isn't run on the computer you're using, it requires HTTPS for web access. Which is completely logical for a finance app, however when dealing with home networks that isn't straightforward. And that is the issue I'm running into. I've tried a few times this week to figure out the HTTPS certificate but it continues to elude me. I'll get it eventually.
Both of these systems contribute to what people call a "homelab." Homelabs are basically this, technology and networking and computers used for home projects etc. Interestingly, I can't seem to find where the term originated. Maybe I'm overlooking it.
So this has been my work for the past few days. I've enjoyed it, as of course something new for my ADHD to glom onto.
Now, back to trying to crack the HTTPS issue I have.
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I just want a dumb TV
Katie and I have had a flat screen TV which we bought shortly after moving to Seattle, a bit over ten years ago. I snagged it as a really good deal from Sam's Club and, overall, it has been fantastic except for one thing. For much of the past ten years, it has had an annoying issue where, randomly, it pop up on screen and say a new connection has been detected and ask if we want to switch to it. This should be a handy feature, right? Except, it's not. We aren't making a new connection. It is detecting ghost signals. Nothing is plugged into the port it believes have a new connection.
As it turns out - this is a known issue when I search the model online and no one has found a solution. So, we just have gotten used to it as a minor annoyance and inconvenience.
However, while we have come to be used to it, I am also embarrassed by it when we have friends over. Like if my car were to keep randomly backfiring while I was giving a friend a ride. They're my friends, they aren't judging me economically or in any way by the TV's annoying interstitial screen, but still... I hate it.
So, with some Christmas money burning a hole in my pocket, I have decided it's time we replace this TV.
But, now I am faced with a new growing frustration: finding a reliable & high quality dumb TV. That is, one which doesn't have its own Internet connection and report the hours I binge and threaten to show me even more ads. As it turns out, these are not prolific in the market.
It is the sad state of the world that TV companies have realized they can derive even more revenue by doing this. In my searches the only "dumb" TV I could find which fit my price range and size specs was from the "Sceptre" brand which is reviewed poorly online.
I could go to Craigslist or FB marketplace, but I fear scammers and buying a bad TV and having no recourse to recoup my money.
Ultimately, I have conceded defeat: finding a new dumb TV is a losing battle. I've accepted that we'll be getting some sort of smart TV, and that I'll simply not use its built in features and I'll leave it offline. This ensures that it can't be fed new ads or share usage data, etc.
Or does it? I fear about the next step for these devices, which would be the now nearly omnipresent Xfinity wifi. What if the manufacturer has worked out a deal that it can always reliably connect to Xfinity regardless of whether I initiate it or not? The discussions I've seen online don't seem to have anyone confirming this sort of thing happening, but it isn't a major leap to guess that it could arrive one day.
I guess we'll cross that bridge when it arrives. But this is an area, like right to repair, I wish we'd get some real champions in Congress and the Senate to push legislation which protects consumers and pushes back on the corporations.
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I was thinking about how cool the future is going to be once we figure out the kinks in the internet of things and smarthome devices. Imagine your house's entire electrical grid being on a smart system. You could wire switches to particular outlets or circuits in the home. No more horribly plased switches which only made sense in the early homeowner fog. Imagine being able to easily rewire outlets, switches, timers, etc.
Of course there is a big security issue with this idea, but it's a fun idea.
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I was thinking about how cool the future is going to be once we figure out the kinks in the internet of things and smarthome devices. Imagine your house's entire electrical grid being on a smart system. You could wire switches to particular outlets or circuits in the home. No more horribly plased switches which only made sense in the early homeowner fog. Imagine being able to easily rewire outlets, switches, timers, etc.
Of course there is a big security issue with this idea, but it's a fun idea.
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Home Network Survey
I did some snooping on my home network, partially because I was trying to see if my wifi camera really required the app or if I could find another way to access it, but on the way to exploring that question I took stock of my home network:
- 3 PCs (home desktop, work laptop, linux laptop)
- 1 iPad (Wife's daily driver)
- 3 phones (wife's iPhone, my work iPhone and my personal Android phone)
- 2 Raspberry Pis
- 4 Streaming devices (2 Rokus, 1 Chromecast, 1 Fire stick)
- 1 Gaming system (Nintendo Switch)
- 1 WiFi Printer
- 1 Smart speaker (Google Nest)
- 1 Wifi camera
- 5 Smart switches & outlets
Fascinating at how the world has changed. To move from a dial up internet connection for one computer, to this era of always-on Internet for a nearly unlimited number of household devices. As I continue down the road of the smart home and internet of things, that number will continue to grow. I have one more smart switch to install, not sure where as it's original location is no longer viable. And I am also curious to look into things like a wifi garage controller, etc.
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