Homelab
This document chronicles my ongoing homelab and home automation journey—it’s perpetually evolving and will never be completely finished or 100% accurate.
My homelab adventure began in 2009 with a simple ReadyNAS, while my home automation obsession started in 2013 with Arduino Nanos. Over the years, I’ve accumulated substantial experience, though I’ll never claim to be an expert—there’s always something new to learn and explore!
Hardware
3D Printers / CNC Machines
- BambuLab H2D w/ (2x) AMS 2 Pro
- Prusa MK4S
- YoraHome Mandril
Networking
- R86S - OPNsense router w/10G SFP+ and three 2.5Gbe ports
- QNAP QSW-M2116P-2T2S - Multi-gig switch with two 10G SFP+/10Gbe ports, remainder are 2.5Gbe
- GWB7664 - WiFi 6 Access Point
Server(s)
Primary/General Hypervisor
Serves as the backbone, running clusters, NAS, and virtual workstation.
- Intel Core i7-13700 - Built-in iGPU for transcoding
- AsrockRack W680D4U-2•2T - Built-in 10Gbe connectivity
- 128GB DDR5 ECC memory
- Hosts both development and production clusters
Stratum 1 PTP/NTP Server
Precision timing for the entire network.
- Raspberry Pi CM4
- Waveshare PoE Carrier board
- UBlox LEA-M8T concurrent GNSS receiver
Cameras
- (2) Reolink Trackmix - Pan/tilt/zoom capabilities
- (3) Reolink RLC-833A - 4K fixed cameras
- Reolink E1 Outdoor - Compact outdoor coverage
- Reolink Doorbell - Front door monitoring
Blinds
- (5) Hunter Douglas PowerView Gen3 - Premium automated blinds
- (3) Zemismart ZM85EL-2Z - Budget-friendly automation
- Switchbot Tilt - Retrofit tilt control
Miscellaneous Smart Devices
- Zooz 700 Z-Wave Stick - Managing my legacy Z-Wave network
- ZZH Zig-a-zig-ah Zigbee Stick - Zigbee coordination
- (7) SmartThings Water Leak Sensors (Zigbee) - Peace of mind
- (3) GE Switches & Dimmer Switches (Z-Wave) - Reliable lighting control
- (5) Ikea TRÅDFRI Bulbs (Zigbee) - Affordable smart lighting
- (4) Ikea TRÅDFRI Smart Buttons (Zigbee) - Simple scene control
Software
Infrastructure & Orchestration:
- Proxmox - Open-source hypervisor running VMs and LXC containers; currently using LXC containers as K3S nodes
- Terraform - Infrastructure-as-code for homelab and DNS provider management
- K3S - Lightweight Kubernetes distribution (because Kubernetes is still hot)
- ArgoCD - GitOps continuous deployment for homelab applications
Networking & Load Balancing:
- Traefik - HTTP load balancer with automatic Let’s Encrypt certificate management
- MetalLB - Bare-metal load balancer enabling shared IPs between cluster members
- Wireguard - Secure VPN access to home network
Home Automation & IoT:
- Home Assistant - Central home automation hub
- Mosquitto - MQTT broker for IoT device communication
- ZWave2MQTT - Z-Wave network management
- Zigbee2MQTT - Zigbee network management
- ESPHome - Custom IoT device firmware for ESP8266/ESP32 controllers (thermostat, garage door, fireplace actuators, etc.)
Data & Monitoring:
- InfluxDB - Time-series database for sensor data storage
- Grafana - Data visualization creating beautiful charts and dashboards
- PostgreSQL - Relational database for Miniflux and Home Assistant
Media & Entertainment:
- Plex - Media streaming with hardware transcoding
- Jellyfin - Open-source media streaming (still working to match Plex’s polish)
Productivity & Utilities: