Build Your Own Home Lab

Build Your Own Home Lab: Take Control of Your Digital Life! 🏠💻

Ever wondered how to run your own “mini data center” at home?

Join us for a hands-on and fun session where we’ll explore the basics of building a general-purpose home lab—from choosing the right hardware to running powerful self-hosted services right from your own home.

💡 Why self-host?
- Take full control of your data 🔐
- Reduce (or eliminate!) monthly subscriptions 💸
- Improve your data access, reliability and redundancy ⚡
- Learn awesome real-world tech skills

We’ll cover:
🖥️ Hardware basics — what you actually need (and what you don’t)
🧠 Software stack — how to bring everything together

And we’ll demo some cool services you can run yourself:
📦 NAS — your own private cloud storage
🏡 Home Assistant — automate your home like a pro
🎥 Frigate DVR — smart AI-powered security cameras
🎬 Plex Media Server — your personal Netflix
🎧 Audiobookshelf — manage your audiobook library
🌐 NGINX Proxy Manager — clean, simple access to your services
🛡️ OPNsense — build your own powerful router/firewall
📁 Filebrowser — your own Google Drive alternative
🖥️ Ollama - your own private ChatGPT

Whether you’re just curious or already tinkering, this session will give you the tools and inspiration to start building your own home lab.

👉 Warning: Side effects may include excessive tinkering, upgrading hardware, and never trusting cloud subscriptions the same way again

Speaker: Edgar Canola

Electrical Engineer and Electronics Technician working in the power generation field, driven by a lifelong passion for technology. I enjoy tinkering with computers and hardware, repairing and restoring vintage electronics, game consoles, exploring retro computing and retro gaming, audio gear, music, and 3D printing.

Schedule:
6:00 - 6:30 - Meet 'n Greet with Pizza and Pop
6:30 - 6:45 - Introduction and Welcome
6:45 - 7:45 - Main Presentation
7:45 - 8:00 - Closing
8:00 - ? - (Optional - whoever would like to join) Continue our conversations at Bar 6ix, 201 City Centre Drive (3 minute walk)

Where to Find Us
Room 204 in the Hazel McCallion Central Library. 2nd Level.

Parking
There is a parking garage under the library. Parking is free from 6PM on.