This is the answer.
Matrix needs to make it easier to expire or delete messages from the server, but other than that it's doing a lot of the stuff Signal should've been doing years ago. Easy to use multiple devices, easy to get messages on multiple devices, keep chat history in sync, no reliance on phone numbers for identity or single identity servers, good working federation / ability to set up private hosted groups, etc.
Try HomeSeer. I ran it for years before switching to HA.
I assume by "Raspberry Z-Wave module" you mean the RaZberry z-wave addon board, and I couldn't agree more. I tried to get that thing going with another home automation package and gave up after a few hours of fucking with it.
That said, these days I'm using Home Assistant on a RPi with a Nortek z-wave/zigbee combo radio USB interface and I couldn't be happier. If you've never used HA it's worth trying out; used to require a lot of scripting but now it's a beautiful and polished system that has all the tweakability a nerd wants with a nice high-WAF GUI. They have a plugin that does exactly what you're doing and makes a virtual alarm system out of existing sensors.
I also agree block connections and use a VPN to access it, I do the same thing.
Very interesting. So you basically have an alarm system in software then? What do you use for software? Do you have an arm/disarm function?
security? For surveillance or something more?
With respect- that is not accurate.
Airsoft guns use spring-pistons or compressed air tanks to fire little plastic balls that don’t generally pierce the skin. They are NOT accurate at all. Airsoft guns are used for gaming and recreational activities- like paintball, just no paint. It’s very much a team sport with honor system, because if you don’t call your hit (loudly say HIT and put your hand up and exit the field when hit) there’s no obvious way to tell you’ve been hit.
Air rifles and pistols are sometimes used for certain target competitions. These use air pressure from a tank or hand pump to fire a lead pellet at energy levels that WOULD pierce the skin or kill a small animal like a squirrel. The air rifles are generally quite accurate.
However due to the mechanics of how they work, air guns are not usable for many target sports like 3-Gun.
Try dd-wrt firmware. Lets you dip your toe into the water so to speak, with a lot less of the complication of openwrt. At least it used to when I last used it several years ago.
If you have a spare old PC, pfSense is a great way to screw around. Even if it only has one NIC there is (or at least used to be) basic hostap support so you could use the builtin wifi card as a base station. Otherwise spend $20 on a supported USB-Ethernet adapter and you’ve got yourself a router to play with.
So would a router running pfsense then also become my primary WiFi routers too? Or is it best to keep pfsense strictly as a firewall and have a separate router strictly for WiFi?
pfSense doesn’t really do WiFi. So you’d use it as a router/firewall, then have something else do your WiFi. I generally recommend Ubiquiti.
It’s worth noting that a ‘WiFi router’ is usually 3 separate things in one box- a router/firewall, a WiFi access point, and a small switch of usually 4-6 ports. In a home you usually want these things in the same place so they’re in one box. In an enterprise, the router/firewall is usually in the basement where there’s no WiFi, network switches may be in many places and a tiny one in the router won’t help you, and WiFi is up by where the workers are. So it’s that sort of setup that pfSense is designed for.
The way I have my place set up- a pfSense machine is the router/firewall. I then use Netgear managed switches (there’s a few, mainly GS110TP’s), and Ubiquiti WiFi. The Ubiquiti controller runs inside Docker on a small Synology box. Highly recommend this setup.
But I’d just as highly recommend going Ubiquiti all the way. Dream Machine Pro SE is a great base router/firewall, and it has a built in PoE switch so you can hang a few U6 Pro access points off it. You get a bit more flexibility with pfSense but in most home environments it’s not needed.
It’s sort of both.
Netgate is the company that develops pfSense. They make pfSense available as a download that you can run on your own hardware or your own VM. They also sell pfSense routers that have official support and a free upgrade to their slightly nicer ‘pfSense Plus’ version. I generally recommend the official hardware (support the project and all that, and it’s good quality if a bit more expensive). However if you want to save a few bucks you can get a cheap NUC-type PC with a few Intel Ethernet ports from Protectli or similar brands on Amazon.
Routers - Netgate / pfSense. Best router GUI I’ve found. If you understand what you want to make happen, chances are you can figure out how to make it happen without touching a CLI. And generally free of Cisco for license bullshit.
Routing and WiFi- Ubiquiti. Not as flexible as pfSense but even easier to use and if you do both routing and WiFi with them you get a bunch of cool analytics. Their surveillance package is great too as long as you use their cameras, pretty much the best mobile surveillance app I’ve found. Door access system also gets a mention.
Synology for almost everything they do, but particularly storage, backup, surveillance (they support almost every camera, albeit with a license requirement) and hosting of self hosted apps using a nice docker GUI. Not as much bang for buck vs. an old PC in terms of CPU power, but very easy to use.
For home automation- Home Assistant or HomeSeer. Both are open platforms that support almost everything. Home Assistant pulls lightly ahead for me because it’s free and has more 3rd party integrations, even if it has a steeper hearing curve in some areas and some rough edges that require tweaking for basic usability (specifically, Z-Wave requires the ‘z-wave js ui’ plugin to take real control over a Z-Wave mesh, and Z-Wave door locks need the Keymaster plugin to get any sort of user code management, neither are straightforward to install). That said- pair Home Assistant with a Z-Wave dongle and some Inovelli light switches and you have a really beautiful setup with insane flexibility.
Newpipe - A YouTube client without ads.
Literally can’t say enough good stuff about Newpipe.
Everything YouTube SHOULD be, this is. LISTEN TO A VIDEO IN THE BACKGROUND!!!11. Playback speed infinitely adjustable- good for lectures, interviews, etc. No ads. No bullshit.
Much has been said about the idea of 'signal leaving UK or EU'. Little has been said about how exactly that would happen.
AFAIK, Signal has no business presence in the UK or EU. IE, no offices, no registered corporate entities. Thus, they (arguably) have no more requirement to comply with UK's or EU's regulations than, say, Iran's or China's or any other jurisdiction where they do not do business and have no presence.
Signal's leadership has a record of giving any regional restrictions the middle finger, so I doubt Signal would voluntarily block EU countries. So that means the EU would either pressure Google and Apple to delist Signal (easily worked around, at least on Android, and soon on Apple too as EU is trying to force sideloading) or they'd pressure ISPs to block connections to Signal (more or less impossible).
If EU tried to do that, it'd just create a giant game of whack-a-mole. And people doing real CSAM shit would just move to even more private distributed systems.