Yes. I had them blocked via my firewall because of the constant traffic they generated and blocking Internet access causes constant bulb resets. The resets are known to TP-Link and according to a couple of sources they created a private firmware release that fixed it. TP-Link failed to publically release that firmware, and last time I checked deny it ever existed. I replaced the bulbs with 3rd Reality Zigbee bulbs that work perfectly.
I didn’t get that far. When they demanded I log in I just removed it. Jellyfin is working OK without having to figure out how to bypass defaults.
When I was in the market for bulbs Hue was just starting that BS. They lost that sale and I’ve been in the process of removing network access for everything possible and severely restricting it when not. My old Honeywell wifi thermostat is gone, smart appliances are disconnected from wifi, and TVs are blocked by my firewall when they aren’t actually being used. Next up, Graphene OS.
Sometimes I’d like to move to a tropical island with no news or Internet at all.
This is why it’s a great idea to refuse to install everything that’s possible, including smart switches, cameras, lights etc. that rely on the good will of some company to keep running.
Honeywell wifi thermostats worked great until they didn’t. Now their servers are often slow or down. TCP-Link smart bulbs reset regularly if their Internet access is blocked because TCP-Link desperately needs to keep track of when everyone’s lights are on and off. Plex wants us to log into their servers to watch content we’re hosting ourselves. Too bad if their servers are down. Security camera companies have been disabling local storage options without warning for years.
Logitech actually planned to introduce a subscription mouse. Hopefully at some point people will get sick of this shit, refuse to put up with it and their sales will tank.
I had something similar happen with Google a few years ago. Even though I had my password and access to my email they decided I was trying to hack my own account and locked me out. Like you I immediately started to look for other solutions.
Syncthing file sharing is really easy to install and use. There are no ports to configure on your router and everything is encrypted in transit. I have my phone’s DCIM directory set up to sync to my home server and PC so new photos are backed up and available everywhere in a few seconds. I installed Syncthing intending to move to another solution eventually, but it works so well (aside from one or two files that occasionally don’t sync) that I’ve just stuck with it.
For passwords Keepass & KeepassXC work really well on just about every platform. I share the password file using Syncthing and in years of doing this I’ve never had a problem that I didn’t cause myself and those were minor.
You can get both of these up and running with very little effort and quickly limit your reliance on Google, then move to other solutions if you find they’d work better for you.
I have them installed in 2 houses, one 120V and one 127V. Electrical panels in NA are pretty simple (although not as simple as the UK) and have the 2 phases split on the 2 sides of the box. The breakers for 120V or 127V circuits on the right are on one phase and those on the left are on the other.
The panel wiring wasn’t something I thought about when I put the power line adapters in and they were plug and play in both locations. I’m guessing some brands work much better than others and these Netgear adapters have worked flawlessly. Or maybe I got lucky.
That said, I’d have Cat6 cables installed if it didn’t require tearing apart the walls and ceiling.
My experience has been different. Wifi extenders were not very reliable. Wifi devices were better, but powerline extenders have been rock solid. Ping times are right in line with wired Ethernet too.
In my experience powerline extenders are a reasonable alternative to Ethernet for home users in places where running a cable isn’t an option.
I used DD-WRT for 9 years and had no reason to switch until I was forced to. At some point after a firmware upgrade my routers began to occasionally lose their configurations after power failures. Months of troubleshooting, logging errors and recreating configs made no difference. I had been concerned for some time that the project seemed to rely on one guy, and although what he’s doing is amazing, it is not possible for him to thoroughly test each firmware release. When one of my routers lost its config when I was 200 miles away and I lost alarm monitoring I was forced to make a change.
Open-WRT has been a really pleasant surprise. It’s completely stable on the same routers and the feature set is unbelievably broad. The learning curve was a bitch though.
And Apple shareholders will revolt if Apple revenues drop by $10 billion because they’re having a tantrum. I hope EU regulators call Apple’s bluff. The U.S. is a corporate hellscape, the EU doesn’t have to be.
Apple sold well over $10 billion worth of Iphones in the EU in 2024, but rather than deal with the annoyance of EU regulation they’re just going to take their ball and go home.
They must think EU regulators are imbeciles.
I haven’t set it up that way, but the options are there. Here’s a forum entry that covers it.
A mini-PC is ideal but you don’t even need that for SyncThing. It also works just fine with a laptop or desktop that you use regularly. My photos and important files are backed up to several different computers every time they’re booted up.
Another option for Google Drive and Photos: Self hosting Syncthing works really well and requires no attention once set up. Plenty of options including Send, Receive or both, and File Versioning.
There can be a period after graceful shutdown where the UPS is still running and the server will not restart if mains power comes back on. Not a likely scenario, but for apps you can’t afford to have down it’s something to consider.
Every wifi device we own that’s connected to wifi and the Internet can be precisely located by the companies involved even when using a VPN.
If you have an Android phone you’ve probably noticed a prompt at some point asking for your permission to transmit precise location information and enable wifi scanning. Those wifi SSIDs and MAC addresses along with its GPS location is sent back to Google. The combination of all that information is almost as unique as a fingerprint. They can use that along with signal strength of each AP in the area to determine your device’s location with precision. (Google used to allow apps like Maps to be used with wifi scanning turned off, but no more.)
Your Google stick can’t tell it’s on a VPN directly, but even without GPS Google can still pinpoint its physical location using their database of SSIDs and MAC addresses, and if they want to they can determine you’re using a VPN by comparing that to the expected location of your IP address. There probably aren’t enough people doing this right now to make it worth the trouble to detect your VPN, but IMO it’s just a matter of time before they decide it is.
I also expect that Google sells that information to every company willing to pay for it, so almost every single wifi enabled device can be precisely located if it can transmit data to the Internet.
We live in a scary time.
Thanks for that list. No need here for more advanced hardware so I’ll have to put off networking upgrades until I can come up with a reason to justify it.
As a home user, what additional features have you found useful on enterprise networking equipment? Just because what I’m doing is already ridiculously complex doesn’t mean it can’t be more so.
OpenWRT is amazingly flexible and would be a great place to start.
I switched from DD-WRT last year and have been amazed how good OpenWRT is. There are thousands of software packages that allow you to do pretty much anything you can think of on inexpensive hardware. Used Netgear R7800s are available for less than $50 on ebay or there are plenty of newer hardware options if you want to spend more. Those thousands of downloadable software packages include Wireguard and Adguard Home, plus there are OpenWRT integrations for Home Assistant. The forum is full of people who are happy to help newcomers.
I started by running OpenWRT in a virtual machine to get familiar with the UI and moved on to a live installation. Highly recommended, especially if you enjoy learning.
4gb isn’t much ram, but it can be surprisingly useful if you configure Zswap. Lots of guides out there. Here’s one of them.
IMO Google Save Browsing was built with consideration for open-source and self-hosted software, but it has nothing to do with user safety, just like blocking Android apps from 3rd party sites has nothing to do with user safety. The harder they make it to move away from their products by making using alternatives difficult, the more money they make and money is now the only objective. Even if this only adds a fraction of a fraction of a percent to their profit it’s something Google will implement.
The old social contract of businesses being of benefit to the community as a whole in addition to making a profit is long gone.