From Smart Bulbs to Skynet: The 2026 State of my Home Automation

From Smart Bulbs to Skynet: The 2026 State of my Home Automation
When I left Elastic, one of my goals was to dive deep into home automation and finally "level up" my setup. Looking back at where I started when we first moved to Graham, it’s almost comical. Back then, "Home Automation" was just a few Philips Hue bulbs and a Raspberry Pi running Home Assistant that didn't do much. It was essentially a glorified light switch connected to Alexa. Fast forward to today, and the Raspberry…

Nova’s Fast dev API

Nova’s Fast dev API
Today's been about getting this thing set up properly. I'm not a developer by trade, but I've always been a coder. That being said, I consider myself a prototype developer, so my projects tend to be loosely managed. I wanted to grow this project up a bit, so I took a step back to think about how it's going to work and decided that I wanted to focus on an extensible API first. The Machine…

Network & Home Automation Apps

Network & Home Automation Apps
In all, I have quite a few components keeping my home automation system running. Some are apps I use every day, some are for managing different parts of the infrastructure and a few are for entertainment. Nearly everything here runs in docker on my NAS or one of two dedicated docker servers. Home Assistant powers the automations and connectivity between a wide range of smart devices. Security system, locks, lights, HVAC, weather, various sensors and…

Shop Server Rack – Tower 2

Shop Server Rack – Tower 2
Always trying to improve organization and make things tidy. Moved all of the network and server hardware in my shop to a studio rack I was no longer using. Formally, Tower 2. Top to Bottom AI Docker Server i7-12700KF, 64GB, 5TB SSD, RTX 4070 and RTX 2080TI Ollama - Primarily used by OpenWebUI, but also regularly used as an API via Python. OpenWebUI - UI for Ollama Chat Qdrant - RAG data store for encoding…

Ollama Notes Chat Tool

Ollama Notes Chat Tool
I've recently switched to Obsidian Notes and wanted a way to integrate my notes into my Open WebUI implantation of Ollama. I came up with a little integration on Github if you would like to play with it. It's working great now, but I got some hilarious results getting there. I've since found Smart Second Brain and highly recommend it over my code.

Information Management Update

Information Management Update
Several of my goal breaks were oriented towards sorting out my tools and processes: My note taking had become splintered between OneNote, Apple Notes and many text files. I need a single source and it needs to be something that isn't difficult to integrate with other systems. Tasks were mostly in Apple Tasks now, but that's because my projects are entirely personal. I didn't want to use iCloud for work tasks when I move to…

Can I use AI as my Frigate False Positive Checker?

Can I use AI as my Frigate False Positive Checker?
The good thing about Coral TPUs are they are really fast. The bad thing about Coral TPUs are the models they use are really small so they aren't very accurate. Luckily Frigate has a really advanced system for configuring object detection filters by size, ratio, etc. As well as a deep mechanic for zones to manage object and motion detection. That being said, I have 15 cameras and it's going to take some time to…

Meet my Rat Rod Ollama Server

Meet my Rat Rod Ollama Server
Putting unused GPUs and computer parts to work for a dedicated Ollama server. I had to use the laser cutter for a quick and dirty SSD array. ai-server 16-Core Intel i7-12700KF, 64GB RAM, 5TB SSD storage, RTX2080Ti and RTX4070, 2.5Gbps ethernet. This server hosts Ollama and Open WebUI, along with a MySQL Server.