Their home network is immaculate and smooth as butter. It connects quickly and integrates with everything. They can manage it all from their phone, but they don't have to because it's all automated. Their server room (a) exists and (b) is cable managed. There's a wireless access point and connected smart speaker in every room, including the garage and the back patio, but they're carefully located for maximum sound coverage and to prevent signal interference. Their home theater is substantially better than a movie theater, and their media server is packed to the gills with content. Network security is hardened, with bespoke subnets for every user and tunneling for the media server and smart home functions. You feel a sense of calm and ease when connected to their network. "Everything I do at work, I try out at home first."

Or:

Their "home network" is a single Belkin router from 2011. They've had it since college, and it takes 9 minutes to reboot (which they have to do daily). It doesn't even have Tomato on it and still uses the default password. They still watch OTA TV and Blu-Rays, so the wifi is exclusively connected to the smart switch that their tea kettle is plugged into so they can start their hot water before they come downstairs. You feel guilty even asking for the wifi password. "Why would I do any network stuff here? I do IT all day at work, the last thing I want to do is even touch a Cat5 cable at home."

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I want to be the first, but I am definitely closer to the second. I'm trying to find a reasonable middle ground.

Like, I want to have a nice home network with a proper NAS, Pihole DNS, Plex/Emby/Jellyfin media server, all my music properly tagged, little mediaplayer/emulation/game streaming endpoint boxes on each TV, etc. But I don't have the time or money to do it right at the moment.

So I have my desktop set up to share out my media folders as SMB shares when it's powered on, and I've used a few tools to get my video content organized right for Kodi. I've got Kodi installed as an app on the Xbox Series X plugged into the family room TV. The other TV has a Chromecast dongle with VLC sideloaded and set up to connect to the SMB shares, because I'm too lazy to get my Kodi setup on it. Every room in the house has an ethernet port, and most rooms have a dumb switch so as much hardware can have ethernet connection as possible. I've run my music collection through MusicBrainz Picard, and separated it into a properly tagged and organized folder, and one for stuff that isn't.

[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 day ago

I used to be the first, but because of a shitty landlord I was forced to move, and I only had 30 days to find a place. I bought a house because no one would rent to me with a large dog and she’s been with us for 10 years now.’my homelab is sitting disassembled in the basement with nowhere to even plug it in, because in order to get an outlet wired I’d have to replace my entire breaker box which is probably hanging on by a thread. I’m too house poor to even consider getting the work done over paying the bills I need to and providing my kid with food and clothing.

The place is nice enough and my family lives well, but I was the first guy and now I have to be the second guy for who knows how long.

In other words; fuck landlords

load more comments (32 replies)