Vanilla nginx is still too far over my head, but Nginx Proxy Manager makes easy work of it.

A lot of people like Caddy but I’ve never tried it. The config files are much simpler and it auto-renews certificates (but so does Nginx Proxy Manager).

That’s pretty neat. I was expecting something basic like “pay it off every month and there’s no interest”, but this was much more interesting.

It’s a method that web pages use to make sure you didn’t make a typo in the number.

Is it maybe because of physical distance? How far is your VPS from the Backblaze region? Check the bucket “S3 Region”. I’m stuck on west, for example, even though I live on the other side of the country. There’s a way to switch, but I haven’t had the need to bother with it.

Self hosting a calendar isn’t too difficult. I use NextCloud personally, but as the saying goes “it’s overkill for your specific requirements”. Nothing wrong with overkill, though.

Another option might be LubeLogger. It’s designed to track car maintenance, but you can set up time based reminders. For example you can create a “vehicle” called Dishwasher and set a once a month reminder. The problem is notifications… LubeLogger only does email if you set it up. I hacked together Ntfy notifications but that was one of the more difficult things I’ve ever figured out. It’s possible, though.

I love MikroTik, but I don’t think it meets OP’s needs. RouterOS isn’t beginner friendly.

Meh, I have a crap ton of smart home stuff and zero of it relies on the cloud. I think I only have one switch that even has the ability to “phone home” and I’ve blocked its access to the internet. It’s like anything else, you just have to be smart about what you buy, and the good stuff has a higher learning curve.

I have Frigate running with a reverse proxy, a coral, etc. I just use the internal Intel GPU on my CPU and it works with a 1080p and a not-quite-4k stream (4MP maybe?). It’s no sweat for the hardware.

GPU is only used to detect motion, and you can even configure a lower resolution sub-stream from your cameras to reduce that load, but I don’t think you’ll need to.

Once motion is detected, Frigate fires up the coral to determine what is there. A car, dog, person, etc.

I have everything get recorded with no processing to a single WD Purple, the biggest I could afford. It holds months of video before rewriting over old stuff.

I have Amcrest cameras which are rebranded Dahua I think. I’m relatively happy with them, but I’ve always dreamed of owning Axis cameras, though they are a bit pricey. My cameras are on a VLAN that can’t access the internet.

Hope that helps.

I’m not an expert, but I think we need more information.

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I use apps on my phone, but have no clue how to troubleshoot them. I have programs on my computer that I hardly know how to use, let alone know the inner workings of. How is running things in Docker any different? Why put down people who have an interest in running things themselves?

I know you’re just trying to answer the above question of “why do it the hard way”, but it struck me as a little condescending. Sorry if I’m reading too much into it!

To access things outside of your LAN (for example from your phone while at the grocery store), each service gets a DuckDNS entry. “service.myduckdns.com” or whatever.

Your phone will look for service.myduckdns.com on port 443, because you’ll have https:// certificates and that all happens on port 443.

When that request eventually gets to your router and is trying to penetrate your firewall, you’ll need 443 open and forwarded to your Debian machine.

So yes, you have it right.

Also forward port 80.

That question is a little bit out of the scope of a forum like this. A question like that would better be answered by the nginx documentation. Sometimes the project documentation might have a blurb about nginx configuration specific for that project. For example, Immich.

For the most part, you only have to reference the nginx documentation. I’ve never looked at the Immich config above until now, and my Immich server works great.

I’ve had a reverse proxy for years, but the config files are very foreign to me because I use Nginx-Proxy-Manager. NPM makes nginx usable for dummies like me, at the expense of gaining a deeper understanding of how it works. I’m ok with that, but you might feel differently.

I’m not up to date on the current market, but I have Ikea blinds that are battery operated which I control from HA. The batteries are rechargeable, and the batteries themselves have micro-USB ports for charging.

One option would be to buy these, see what kind of charging port they come with these days, and try to make some physical modifications to jam a USB connector in there. From there, you just have to figure out the solar part. A lot of solar charge controllers have USB ports which should work to charge the battery, but they are clunky and you’d have to mount it on the wall probably.

For what it’s worth, the batteries in these shades last quite a long time… Looking at one of them, I last charged it in September 2024, and it’s still at 72%. It goes up/down at least once a day I’d say.

Looks like you can add these sensors. Verify on the product page, though. I only just looked at the WS-5000.

I agree with Ambient Weather. Spend as much as you’re comfortable with. Make sure it has a WiFi base station. I’m using this integration installed through HACS. It’s solid.

For remote access, wireguard is great. You can access stuff via their internal addresses.

One of the few podcasts I listen to sometimes. Wishing them well and thanks for all of the hard work.

There are various ways to use it, yeah.

I’m not smart, can you tell me if having it behind a reverse proxy with certs and everything fixes any of these flaws?