I imagine there’s a significant chunk of users who don’t know or care how to properly open their server up to the world and are relying on the Plex proxies

That seems like the obvious place to put a subscription that won’t get people upset. Or maybe it’s in the presentation.

When HomeAssistant started a subscription, they renewed their commitment to opensource, added new remote features with obvious costs under subscription while still letting you do it yourself, plus made it clear this funded continued opensource development. I happily pay this and haven’t been disappointed. Did Plex fumble a similar opportunity?

Definitely curious as well, but so far haven’t gotten around to trying

I used to do that but it would constantly nag until I connected it

I’m not entirely sure what those movies are like, and don’t want to know, but ……

My Mom watches horrible Hallmark stuff constantly. As far as I can tell, every movie has the same plot, they are low quality, etc. The thing is they are simple feel good movies for her. She finds them relaxing and gets good feelings from them, perfectly appropriate for “entertainment “.

If there is any parallel here, my point is that you don’t have to appreciate them for your Mom to. Why does it matter whether you agree with the movies or not: do you love her? Do you want to help her with entertainment that makes her feel good /relaxed/entertained?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/21/information-commissioner-investigates-lg-snooping-smart-tv-data-collection

https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/samsungs-warning-our-smart-tvs-record-your-living-room-chatter/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/29/what-your-smart-tv-knows-about-you-and-how-to-stop-it-harvesting-data

Yes, you should not be thinking about security in terms of an outside intruder here. Think about untrustworthy or potentially compromised devices.

• WiFi smart devices are notorious for calling home, possibly collecting data, even if you’re trying to use them locally.
• There have been botnets from unsecured video cameras, and even some compromised from before import.
• TVs report back what you’re using them for and when, even playing through hdmi, and some have been caught listening in to your private conversations.

How do you prevent these from happening, or limit what they can do? One way is to put them on a separate vlan without internet access (your HA or other hub can listen on multiple VLANs and be the gatekeeper) and without access to your computers.

That being said, for similar requirements, I found managing the more complex network to be too much hassle, and went back to a simple flat network

• They can’t potentially send my “real” WiFi credentials to someone who might exploit them.
• They can’t collect data on what is on my network or what I’m doing
• If one somehow has malware, they can’t harm most of my network or devices (there are well known exploits for cameras, for example)
• I can more easily limit the amount of bandwidth a poorly behaved device can use

Remember that once you give the password out, they likely have the password from now on. They will always have access until you change the password.

No, a lot of local traffic is not encrypted, especially residential. No, residential probably doesn’t use much authentication or separation of privileges.

Yeah, if we focus on high value items, it becomes much simpler. But what if there’s a disaster like a fire? One shirt is too cheap to worry about but having to replace all your clothes is expensive, so what’s a practical way to inventory that?

Looking at my home automation stuff, really the only expensive thing is my smart thermostat and it’s nit that expensive. However all the devices add up to several thousand dollars.

Maybe there’s a sense of type and volume or something, and video or photos, that would be sufficient to inventory everyday stuff

Actually, I’d also wonder how far insurance “replacement value” stretches. So many things I got on close out deals where the nearest remaining similar brand is several time the price

I wonder if something like a picture or video is sufficient to inventory quantities and general cost, such as clothes. The number of t-shirts I have changed over time, but a week worth of Carhartt adds up

Seems like a lot of pluses

I’ve been wondering about that, since my Firestick became so shitty that I actually prefer streaming apps on my TV. Most of my devices are already on Apple, so how about this one?

• I like fewer ads
• if it’s like the Apple TV app, there’s too much pressure to buy stuff I’m never going to buy.

So, on the home screen, can you tell which Videos are to purchase without clicking into them? Are things you subscribe to easily distinguishable from god forsaken ad infested ones?

Then you get “Kia Boys” videos. A simple mechanical key really has not been sufficient for over a decade

As does my fire stick, and even my Vizio smart TV … all except the Apple Arcade

I’ve bent thinking about moving in the other direction. I try to avoid privacy abuse of the SmartTV and Fire Stick is being enshittified, so what should I use? AppleTV seems interesting to try plus games may be fun

If it’s been a while since you checked, it’s worth checking again. RPi has been becoming more available over the last month or two, and I was able to get one of the new RPi 5!

Someone put together a great locator tool

• https://rpilocator.com/

It’s working for me now. I guess it’s been a full day so they’d better be back up. I didn’t notice an outage yesterday but was not around most of the day to listen to music

I’ll also second the poster who suggested streaming an alternate way. I find the Spotify app a more convenient way to stream over Sonos than the Sonos app, and that might have worked.

A second Pi? According to the RPI Locator, Raspberry Pi’s are available for list price now.

My use case is a bit different in that I don’t know what containerized services I want to run, except that I want to play with Kubernetes. Raspberry Pi still seems like a good choice and I may restart that project soon

According to the Raspberry Pi tracker, they are becoming available again. You may have to get them as soon as they arrive, but at least it shows they are stocked again

Let me introduce you to Docker buildx, you don’t know her, she’s from Canada. But seriously, multi-platform images are a thing, and I need to figure out how to do them

I guess I’m luckier than most, with rock solid internet. It’s extremely dependable. Working from home, it’s faster and more reliable than at my employer. When my kids goto their mother’s where they’re stuck with “the worst company in America” as their provider, they complain constantly about how horrible it is, despite it being “the same” as mine