What's On My Smart HomeLab Server?

Home Assistant is at the centre of my Smart Home, but there are so many other amazing apps and services that go into making a secure, local and self hosted smart home - in this video I take you through a tour of all of the core apps and services I use in my Smart Home on a daily basis!

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0:00 - Intro
0:22 - Dashboard
1:57 - Server/Network Overview
3:05 - Hypervisors
4:46 - Storage
6:34 - Firewalls
9:01 - Home Automation
9:32 - Syncing Storage
10:39 - Password manager
11:44 - DNS/AdBlock
12:05 - Media
13:51 - Unifi

[wickedcoyote]

I would definitely love an in-depth series on your network config with vpn and how-to! I’ve been thinking of doing this for connecting my parents home to mine too.

[TheMongolPrime]

I seriously loved this video! I had no idea you had such a similar background to me. I thought you were only into HA and similar ecosystems. More of this stuff please!

[mhanley]

I would love an in depth video on all of this. Basically starting a home lab 101
Hardware choices
Network setup
Virtualization setup
Security setup
Then do a 201 where you go into details of cool tweaks, apps, and things that make life easier. I mean who doesn't want that!? Great video ❤ Setting up homer now!

[DdraigSPD]

Excellent insight for a newcomer to the homelab/server world. Have just installed TrueNAS Core and upgraded to Scale on a salvaged 2011 desktop machine as an experiment, so I'm just getting a feel for the most popular apps that folks are running before taking the next steps. Really useful overview and nice to hear the Scottish brogue again ( I spent 21 years working in Lanarkshire for one of the few remaining semiconductor facilities before retiring back in my Welsh homeland with my Scottish spouse). Sub'd :)

[wrozwad]

Thx a lot for you video! I'm currently in the middle of renovating my apartment, and it inspired me to create a better "multimedia device box". So, instead of a regular small enclosure for the modem and router, I now have three 19-inch 2U rack boxes :D

[chrisdixon]

Great video, and very timely as I need to redo my own setup! It slowly evolved, having new bits tacked on, rather that being properly planned and needs tending to.
I'd definitely be interested in more in-depth, perhaps covering the hardware and how the various services are deployed and interconnected - for example what is the firewall physically running on and is opnSense running on it or in a container on proxmox and just communicating to it via some APIs.

[Reducer]

Good stuff! I've learned a lot from setting up my current Raspberry cluster (which is more of a learning exercise than something I actually do stuff with), but I have some new hardware coming in where I'll start over fresh and use all the stuff I've learned. I do have a TrueNAS running (on metal), I tend to use it to quickly test things due to how easy they are to install there to see if they're something I want to use, and then I make a "real" Terraform config for it to run on the cluster.

[groto]

Thank you so much for doing this video! I would love more homelab videos. I’m also a big fan of Techno Tim. It would be cool to see what hardware you actually have like if you have a server rack set up at home or just more details about the hardware. Also deep dives on connecting and syncing data between the local and remote site would be awesome!

[gerryf]

Nice! Lewis. Would love to see how you manage your network with pfSense, VLANs and the general setup for IOT devices. HA remote management, etc. I know, a bit of a busman's holiday!

[TheDropForged]

Finally!!! You have no idea how much I wanted to see your homelab!!! Since you said you are in IT, I knew I wanted to see your homelab.

[donaldhoudek]

Loved the video, I will probably need to re-watch a few times to get all the things I want to do on my system. Again Excellent video

[makanimike]

really interesting video! I am definitely interested in more details about what hardware you use in your 2 (4) locations and how you handle all your home automation hardware! I suspect you use vlans, and I am eager to learn about that, since I have no clue, and this will be thing I will eventually do (probably when I move homes next time)

Edit: i think it would also be cool to see some of your media related automations. In particular with jellyfin and even getting voice working with it. I'm imagining you could just speak to your home theater. "Let's watch GoT" and then lights dim down, blinds roll down, tv Starts, jellyfin starts the next episode.

[junkins]

Wow! You've just opened me up to a lot more. Haven't heard of Homelab yet, but now I'm really curious.😊 Thanks Lewis.

[northwood]

I am struggling with the same vaultwarden dilemma as you. Now you gave me the solution, thank you!

[reinhardtsmit]

Great overview, thanks! I'd love to see a specific video on your firewall and why for example the firewall provided within a Ubiquity UDM or UDR might not be sufficient for a (power) home user.

[MrVdbglenn]

I'd like a video about the specific hardware you used in all your locations and why each was chosen. I'm looking to setup a home lab myself.

And am for ever doubting how far I should go. If I had carte blanc I'd have used our offices old blade servers and storage 😂 but my electrical bill would skyrocket

[fredarmstrong]

Loved this video Lewis. Great to see what you are doing. I am curious about a few minor details. Which services are running in containers vs VMs. Like HA, Adblock, Reverse Proxy, etc....

[magnuscarlsson]

Great overview! I'd love to see a deep dive into how you manage your multiple HA, especially the beta vs production. Do you move switches between them?

[sdfhjklhsfdjdsflhkds]

As a long time Plex user (with a lifetime PlexPass) I did start looking at Jellyfin, but found the config a little too picky. Would love to see a future video about your (future) migration over to Jellyfin. Maybe that will give me the kick in the arse that I need to turn the container back on and polish the config!

[iankrauss]

This is awesome! I could really use a guide for getting something like this set up!