How to Choose Between TrueNAS SCALE vs TrueNAS CORE — The Real Network Engineer’s Guide

# How to Choose Between TrueNAS SCALE vs TrueNAS CORE — The Real Network Engineer’s Guide *By Marcus Webb — 8 years enterprise network engineering, 6-year Portland home lab* ## The Short Answer If you are trying to build a smart home gateway using Linux, you are looking at the wrong product category entirely. TrueNAS […]

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2N IP Solo Review — Six Months on a Portland Proxmox Home Lab

# 2N IP Solo Review — Six Months on a Portland Proxmox Home Lab *By Marcus Webb — 8 years enterprise network engineering, 6-year Portland home lab* ## The Short Answer The **2N IP Solo** is a solid entry-level video intercom for multi-unit buildings, but it struggles to compete with enterprise-grade alternatives like the **Siedle

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Netgear CM1200 DOCSIS 3.1 vs Motorola MB8611 — The Portland Cable Modem Showdown

# Netgear CM1200 DOCSIS 3.1 vs Motorola MB8611 — The Portland Cable Modem Showdown *By Marcus Webb — 8 years enterprise network engineering, 6-year Portland home lab* ## The Short Answer In my testing within the Portland basement lab, the **Netgear CM1200 DOCSIS 3.1** takes the win for DIY enthusiasts, offering superior upstream stability and

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Eve Room Indoor Air Quality Monitor Review: Is It Worth It?

# Who Should Buy The Eve Room Indoor Air Quality Monitor If you are running a Home Assistant instance on a dedicated Proxmox node in your basement, this device is a solid addition to your environmental monitoring stack. Specifically, if you need granular data for a multi-room setup where you are aggregating MQTT topics into

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Govee Water Sensor vs Yolink Water Sensor: Which Should You Buy?

# Govee Water Sensor vs Yolink Water Sensor: A Home Lab Reality Check ## THE SHORT ANSWER **Buy Govee Water Sensor if:** * You are running Home Assistant with Zigbee2MQTT and need a device that offers a 30-day battery life without frequent replacements, which I found essential during my winter testing when the basement humidity

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Aqara TVOC Air Quality Monitor Review: Is It Worth It?

# Aqara TVOC Air Quality Monitor Review: My Portland Basement Reality Check I’ve spent the last six years building a Linux-based smart home ecosystem in my Portland basement, running a four-node Proxmox cluster and a 24-bay Synology NAS. Before going independent, I spent eight years as a network engineer for a managed services provider in

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