I have been running a home DNS ad blocker for over six years across four different SBCs and a thin client, and I can tell you this: the single board computer that runs Pi-hole (or its cousins) barely breaks a sweat doing it. A DNS filter resolves a lookup, checks a blocklist, and either returns … Read more
I spent the last three months testing every PoE HAT I could get my hands on, specifically wiring them up to Raspberry Pi cameras in real surveillance and timelapse deployments. After testing 10 different boards across 4 Pi generations, I learned which ones actually deliver clean power, stay cool enough for 24/7 operation, and survive … Read more
I spent three months testing budget 2.5GbE switches with my home NAS to find out which ones actually deliver multi-gig speeds without costing a fortune. If you have ever waited 45 minutes to copy a 200GB backup folder over gigabit ethernet, you already know why 2.5GbE matters. It is the cheapest way to roughly triple … Read more
I spent three months testing voice assistant hardware across my 2,400-square-foot home with Home Assistant running on a dedicated server. After countless wake word false triggers, latency measurements, and integration headaches, I found that local voice control transforms how you interact with your smart home. Unlike cloud-based assistants that send your voice data to corporate … Read more
I’ve spent the last three months living with eight different smart plugs, all while deliberately killing my home internet at random intervals. I wanted to see which ones still flipped on my lamp and which ones died uselessly in the wall. The results reshaped how I think about the smart home. Most people don’t realize … Read more
Running a security camera system around the clock means picking a camera storage drive for 24/7 recording that won’t quit on you at month six. I run a six-camera NVR at my house and a four-camera setup at a small retail shop, and I’ve swapped out enough dead drives to know that a regular desktop … Read more
Blue Iris has earned its reputation as one of the most powerful surveillance software packages available, but it is only as good as the cameras feeding it video. After spending months testing different models with our own Blue Iris setup, we can say with confidence that ONVIF compatibility is the single most important factor when … Read more
Finding the best indoor PoE camera for a baby monitor setup changed how my family handles overnight childcare. After our WiFi baby monitor dropped signal for the third time during a midnight feeding, I switched to a wired Power over Ethernet camera and never looked back. PoE cameras deliver both power and video through a … Read more
I have spent the better part of two years running eight 4K PoE cameras from a single small box mounted behind my desk, and I can tell you exactly why the NVR Mini PC debate matters. A mini PC running Frigate or Blue Iris gives you something a cloud subscription never will: your footage stays … Read more
Power blipped for 800 milliseconds last Tuesday and my NAS rebooted mid-write. That single event sent me down the rabbit hole of choosing between APC and CyberPower for a home server UPS, and I have spent the last six months running both brands side by side on real homelab loads. If you are weighing APC … Read more