Thanks, this is one of the few truly beginner-friendly blogs I’ve found (not just this post, but the entire blog). It would be great for people to suggest some other more up-to-date resources for someone starting out. Specifically, this blog talks about trying and comparing different setups, factoring in costs, time commitments, dealing with setbacks, preparing for different use cases, etc.

There are lots of resources that share technical details, how-tos, system specs, etc., but not many that I’ve found walking through the decision making process including what worked and what didn’t and why.

What are some important things that have changed in the past five years that would change some if the choices?

Is it fine for a billion dollar company to ripoff smaller artists? It’s a form of piracy, so this would be allowed, too.

How do you change that without completely stripping property rights away from artists though? Not just corporate IP, but all artists?

In my case it was a specific use case in that I have a number of outdoor lights that I want to control without needing to go back in the house every time. Folks here have given a few options that would work well for this without relying on the internet, but I already have the setup installed at this point

That’s helpful. It seems like a system an insane person would come up with, but I understand it.

Thanks. That helps.

This is really amazing to me. I had no idea that it was using the internet to send the on/off signal from my phone, up to a server (multiple servers), just to send the command back to my home network, and to the device. That seems like an absolutely bonkers system to turn on a switch. I would be better off to repurpose an old RC toy to control the switch!

I don’t really understand why a computer is necessary at all, is the thing. I know that it’s possible to use wifi network to send a signal between two devices. I have a sound board that works this way, and manages to communicate precise multichannel instructions directly over the network without an internet connection.

If I want to turn on a light switch, it seems like all I should need to send is the location of the light switch on the network and the on/off command. I know that there is not the computing power in the light switch itself to process much more than that.

Do these devices all connect to a remote server to switch on and off??

I just noticed that mine is the same. I’d have to guess it has something to do with the 0.19 update.

A: I found what looks like a pretty good guide here https://piped.video/watch?v=xBIowQ0WaR8

It covers setting up a virtual server on AWS, as well as Setting up a Linux server with Docker and FileCloud or Netxcloud. It discusses some of the pros and cons of each. The only coding involved here is some copying and pasting json files, which is pretty beginner friendly if you ask me.

What you you folks here think? Is this a reasonable guide? Do you see any red flags or major oversights that beginner should know?

That’s a recommendation that I’ve seen a couple of times, and it looks promising. However I haven’t found any guide that really explains how to do it step by step, or what factors I should consider, or even really what I need to be able to do it. Do you know if there is such a guide for someone who really isn’t a “computer guy?”

The really stupid thing is that everyone knows Netflix succeeded by offering - for the first time - a better product than piracy. A decade ago, Netflix offered a huge library of high quality, ad free content, which was easy to navigate and relatively free of bugs and viruses. People signed up because it was better than piracy where content could be difficult to find, time consuming to download or slow to buffer, with risks of malware or questionable websites.

People are willing to pay for a better experience that supports the people making art and entertainment.

Netflix already knows how to do this, built a company around it and launched an industry based on the knowledge that people will pay for a product that is better than free options. Now, it’s gone all the way back around. Streaming services are fragmented and expensive, content is hard to find and disappears without warning, streaming apps don’t always work on the devices they’re supposed to, quality gets unexpectedly throttled, and the ads are inescapable and unskippable.

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Thank you!

If I knew the first thing about programming I would! I hope one day. I’ve tried other apps and they are just not as good.