As a Jellyfin-fanboy: you are right. Plex is easier to deal with out of the box.
Anything else would not make any sense for a paid service.

I’d say though, if you dedicate the time to set it up correctly, it is an equally good solution and it’s free.
If time is a factor in your life, then there is no shame in paying for something that just works. It’s why I have a Synology NAS and not a self-built Unraid or OMV server.

I run Jellyfin on Chromecast with Google TV every day, it works super well.

Unless you mean casting from your phone, then I don’t know.

The ability to watch from anywhere.

Install on the Jellyfin server and share that server (or just the IP with the Jellyfin port) with whoever you want. Now they have access to Jellyfin and Jellyfin only.
That’s how I set stuff up for friends and family.

I agree, but want to add Portainer. Compose in Portainer takes away the scary SLI/Terminal part.

At least for me, hosting stuff went from «I have no idea what I’m doing» to «This sort of makes sense».

Cheers! Will have a look when I have time

Oooo can you tell me more?
I have a UPS and it’s connected to and communicate with my Synology, but the NUC could also benefit from a safe shutdown in case of power outages.

I’d probably go for a small N100 mini-PC.
Should be plenty powerful for what you need, very low wattage and relatively trivial to get GPU pass through in Proxmox. Alternatively one of the more powerful versions.

This depends on how many cameras, resolution and frequency of course, but you should be able to see if others with similar setups have it running smoothly. You’d be limited on storage, but can set up NFS to your NAS or existing server.

I plan to use Surveillance Station in my Synology NAS.
Two PoE cameras on their own physical network. Everything is laying in the closet still as life just gets in the way, but hopefully it will be done this winter or spring.

I also have a Eufy 2k Doorbell camera with a hub for local storage.

None of it is for actual protection though, as burglaries are rare here. It’s only because I love tech and to capture interesting moments. I also plan on making time lapses because they are cool.

I agree.

It’s easy to forget how much time and dedication running a custom setup can cost, and that quickly drains whatever wife-acceptance-factor you had left.

Think of paying for a pre-built NAS less as just overpriced HW, but more as great software features that work out of the box and a dev team improving functionality for you every day.
It can host a plethora of containers with ease on the side anyways, and if you need something specific that requires more juice: build that on the side and tinker with it.

N100 mini-PC for instance can host anything but heavy game servers for <15W.

I agree with this, but would like to add for OP that diversifying is not always a bad idea.

I have a NAS that is mainly running as just a NAS with a few containers to help me download and categorize stuff. It has a AMD CPU, so no HW transcoding, so I added a N100 to host Jellyfin on the side. That little NUC can also run HA, Heimdall, PiHole, Tailscale or any lightweight container with ease. I do it with Proxmox LXC’s.

If I wanted to host game servers, I would probably build a server for that on its own anyways, just because it would be more power hungry and need modularity for future upgrades/changes.

I guess the point is that there is no «one server does it all» for me. I prefer to have servers more suitable for their tasks than having one beast doing everything alone. Makes it suck less when stuff breaks too.

Otherwise I think the comment above is on point.

Just took over a house last year with smart detectors connected to a homebase, all Li-Ion. Can see the battery percentage in the app. No more December 1st checks for a long time!

We use these in our products at work and I’ve never heard about them failing before the equipment is replaced anyways. They are soldered.

I won’t quote life expectancy (MTBF) but we have many customers with 15-20 year old PLC’s with the original capacitor.

Poor wording on my part.

It still functions, but I don’t get push notification when it detects motion or someone rings the bell while I’m out. I will see the recording once I’m on my local network again.

Not exactly what you asked for, but I went with Eufy with local storage. There is a home base so everything is stored here and not in the cloud. Costs a bit more but gives me peace of mind.

Downside is that it won’t work if my internet or power is out, but that happens once a year, max.

For door I’d go with Yale with the hub to lock and unlock remotely.
Don’t know of a combined solution, sadly.

I’m still a beginner but Mint Cinnamon has treated me well, as has my Debian server.

Don’t see any reason to test anything else as long as it works this well. Nor do I have time after the kids came either…

It’s a fair response. Some uf us aren’t flush with time.

I’d survive SSH for installing Portainer and then you can run most of it from its GUI. If you use Docker Compose it will be super easy to make changes to your setup as well. Just change the file and redeploy your badboys.

I’m a recent dad absolutely strapped for time, but I still managed to set up a headless Debian server with close to zero Linux knowledge. There are so many amazing guides out there, especially on GitHub.

Good luck whatever you go for.