Self-hosting guides written from lived experience.
No fluff. No hedging. Just what actually works when you're running real hardware in a real home.
New guides, the moment they ship.
One email when a new guide or free reference drops. No spam, no drip funnel, easy unsubscribe.
6 live. More in the works.
Each guide covers one topic from setup through production. Written by someone who runs this stuff at home.
Pick hardware that won't fight you, install the OS right, and get services running on day one. The guide that started all of this.
Get Home Assistant running in Docker, connected to your network, and actually controlling something before you close the tab.
38 deployable YAML blocks with failure modes, field notes, and customization guidance. Lighting, presence, safety, reliability — the full system.
Get your cameras into Home Assistant without a cloud subscription. TinyCam, go2rtc, and full Fire TV control wired up.
Run Ollama, Open-WebUI, and local LLMs on your own hardware. Honest hardware tradeoffs, the five-layer stack, and remote access that doesn't expose you.
Your real threat model, secrets out of plaintext files, key-only SSH, and zero-trust remote access with no open ports — lock down a homelab without locking yourself out.
Which protocol to pick, which hardware to avoid, and how to build a mesh that doesn't drop devices at 2am.
Not every service is worth running. These 10 are. Password manager, DNS, reverse proxy, monitoring — the stack that earns its keep.
Design a HA dashboard that your family will actually use — kiosk mode, per-room views, and controls that work without a user manual.
Full backup strategy, offsite copies, and a migration path you can actually execute. Stop hoping your install never breaks.
Whisper, Piper, and the Wyoming protocol. Voice control that doesn't phone home, on hardware you already own.
Proxmox without the enterprise baggage. VM setup, LXC containers, passthrough, snapshots — the parts you'll actually use.
What Matter actually is, what Thread adds, and whether it's worth migrating your existing setup. An honest assessment.
Clamp monitors, smart plugs, and the HA energy dashboard. Track what your home actually consumes and act on it.
Free. No email required. Just useful.
Cheat sheets and quick-reference guides you can read, bookmark, or print. No gate.
Written by someone who actually runs this.
Bench Notes isn't a blog. It's the documentation I wish existed when I was standing up my first NUC, fighting Home Assistant configs, and Googling the same Docker flags over and over.
Every volume is written from a production homelab — the same stack, running 24/7, with real consequences when it breaks.