RP2050 would work, as it also has the necessary built-in peripherals. ESP32 would add wifi and better ESPHome support. I suggest you stay away from the ESP8266, as it needs to do PWM in software and struggles with the 25kHz output frequency.
From my experience: ESP32/RP2040 work without additional circuitry which works with most fans, but for protection, you want to add level shifters. Not all fans pull up the PWM pin to 3.3V, the spec allows for 5V.
Shameless plug, hopefully this is allowed here.
I built something like that, that allows fan control via WiFi. First I built it only for myself, but since the spare boards from PCBA quickly sold, I decided to keep it stocked.
Short gist: 12V Input, ESP32S2, ESPHome-based. Has 4 PWM-fan outputs, onboard temperature & humidity sensor and Qwiic expansion port.
If you want to build it by yourself, the schematic is in the hardware folder. And if you don't want to use ESPHome - there is no firmware lock, you find the pin assignment on the product page and can write your own firmware if you so desire.
As far as I can find, Plex does not support AMD iGPU for transcoding. Jellyfin will work, but support seems rather spotty. For other AI/ML work, it seems like ROCm is up and coming, but support - e.g. for Frigate object detection - is still a work in progress, especially for newer chips.
Is it actually using the iGPU, or just "brute forcing" it?
I've put it in quotes as the effort required from these chips for streaming transcoding is so low these days that brute force makes it sound like more effort than it really is.
Thats interesting. My 5 year old Ryzen laptop can transcode 4k faster than realtime, which is what I mean mean by "these chips". Modern Ryzen, which is what the subject is about.
Quick Sync is invaluable for low powered processors, my old Intel embedded Wyze can do several streams.
"faster than realtime" doesn't mean much if it's in a device that's supposed to do more than just transcoding (such as serving a web app) or if you need multiple transcodes, etc.
Even on modern chips, transcoding is quite expensive.
People who are running Plex generally are running on servers also serving files, web apps, and who knows what else. These devices are often running 24/7, so both overall cost and power efficiency are big concerns. I wouldn't want to rely on my server being at high CPU usage most of the time - for power, heat, and overall reliability concerns.
I have no idea who you are arguing with, or what your problem is, but its like you've invented something on the internet to get angry about.
I asked the following in my original question because I have literally the same concerns, and I've found transcoding support with AMD to be a bit flakey with these media server apps.
> Is it actually using the iGPU, or just "brute forcing" it?
Jellyfin supports it, but the resulting quality is noticeably poor compared to Intel QuickSync or software transcoding. Perhaps the newer chips are better, but if you're building a media server from scratch you'd probably build around an Intel CPU or ARC GPU anyway.
The appeal for me was the "it just works" factor. It's a compact unit and setup was easy. Every self-built solution would either be rather large (factor for me) and more difficult to set up. And I think, that's what has kept Synology alive for so long. It allows entry level users to get into the selfhosting game with the bare minimum you need, especially if transcoding (Plex/Jellyfin) is mentioned.
As an anecdote, I've had exactly this problem when buying my last NAS some time ago. It was DS920+, DS923+ vs. QNAP TS-464. The arguments for QNAP were exactly what you write. Newer chip, 2.5G NICs, PCIe Slot, no NVMe vendor lock-in. So I bought the QNAP unit. And returned it 5 days later, because the UI was that much hot garbage and I did not want to continue using it.
Lately, the UGreen NAS series looks very promising. I'm hearing only good things about their own system AND (except for the smallest 2-bay solution) you can install TrueNAS. It mostly sounds too good to be true. Compact, (rather) powerful and flexible with support for the own OS.
As the next player, with mixed feelings about support, the Minisforum N5 Units also look promising / near perfect. 3x M.2 for Boot+OS, 5 HDD slots and a PCIe low-profile expansion slot.
I now have a mini pc next to my NAS, and leaving my NAS to only file storage chores. That said, I also am running NVidia Shield TV Pro boxes with Kodi for local media and largely don't have to worry about the encoding.
I bought an inexpensive used Mac Mini and attached a standard HDD USB3 enclosure to it with multiple drives. Works great for streaming to any network appliance I want to use.
I sold my synology for an AOOStar WTR Max. It arrived with an issue (usb4 port didn't work) but replacement was quick and easy. So far, I'm rather happy. Really hesitated with Minisforum.
I would say cases like the Fractal Node 304 or something like the HL4 / HL8 from 45homelab would be the best suited candidates.
Regarding mainboards - models from CWWK with lots of SATA ports have been trendy lately. But there are reports of problems. The other options are either using some obscure supermicro mainboards with lots of ports or using a HBA for expansion.
I want to mention a possible middle ground here: UGreen NAS Storage. All but the smallest model come the OS on a seperate M.2 drive. If you disable the watchdog in BIOS, you can use the models like a normal Server This would give you:
The M.2 slots are connected rather slow, but good enough for OS/app drives.
For example, my plan for the next NAS would be the 4-Slot N100 variant with TrueNAS. One M.2 SSD for boot, Two M.2 SSDs for Apps/Server duties in mirroring and the 4 drives in Raid-Z1.
It seems to be coming in multiple waves from multiple sides.
One of those is EUs ISA: First a display, now a warning and later actual interference with the driver.
And with the experiences with the current status are enough for me to be against those systems. The car doing an emergency stop because it saw a 30 sign an an adjacent road makes me not wanna purchase such a car. But there will be some time where no alternatives exist.
>>And with the experiences with the current status are enough for me to be against those systems. The car doing an emergency stop because it saw a 30 sign an an adjacent road makes me not wanna purchase such a car.
Just to be clear - I hate these systems. They are unnecessary, don't improve safety, and increase the cost of new cars for everyone.
But, no system in any car works the way you described it. Even if the car recognizes a speed limit sign from an adjecent street(which happens all the time and I have experienced it too) - the only thing that will happen is that it will bong at you, it won't do "an emergency stop". The more hardcore version of the EU laws around it will require cars to stop applying throttle when going faster than the limit, but literally no legislation proposed or implemented now or in the future requires the cars to actively slow down(ie - apply brakes without your input).
That "subscription" is one which I gladly pay due to multiple reasons:
1. It supports the developers(s)
2. The price can be directly attributed to cost for training
3. You can keep the models you trained during your subscription indefinately
That's pretty much the opposite to AgentDVR. I don't need hosted services for remote access or push notifications - I can do that myself. But if I want to abide the license terms, I need to purchase a monthly subscription for remote access over my own VPN.
The documentation is rather scarse on performance numbers, but it looks like the hierachy of price/performance is like Intel iGPU ("free"), Intel A310, Nvidia GPU.
I'm explicitly leaving out the Coral TPU, since it's been reported that the newer Intel CPUs (Core Ultra) seem to provide the same performance with it's iGPU.
They have a two-stage approach, first motion detection with - I think - OpenCV and then afterwards object detection of zones of interest with different object detection models, depending on your hardware.
It supports Coral TPU, Halio Accelerator and most GPUs. I think AMD is still the worst, since ROCm is not available on iGPUs.
Afterwards, they provide/support models like edgedet (Coral), YOLO-NAS, YOLO, D-Fine or RF-DETR.
They also offer paid access to a specially trained version of YOLO-NAS where you can also train your own images.
It's frustrating trying to work with ISPs. While there surely are business services available, as a normal customer, you're out of luck.
I count myself lucky, since I can at least get a public (dynamic) IPv4 address. The other option is DSLite with a single /64 via DHCP6. Well, I can't use that. So yeah, while it would be a fun journey trying out IPv6 - it's not feasable for me. And most likely, that holds true for others aswell.
There are options available - like the HE tunnelbroker - but those come with their own set of drawbacks.
A few years ago, I built a simpler version of that device myself.
As you said: A 90% solution is easy to hack together. I had mine displaying Skype for Business status so my colleagues would know if I was in a call or just listening to music.
The harder part or much rather the time consuming part is getting a good status message from the installed apps. It looks like there is plenty of software and APIs available.
From my experience: ESP32/RP2040 work without additional circuitry which works with most fans, but for protection, you want to add level shifters. Not all fans pull up the PWM pin to 3.3V, the spec allows for 5V.
Shameless plug, hopefully this is allowed here.
I built something like that, that allows fan control via WiFi. First I built it only for myself, but since the spare boards from PCBA quickly sold, I decided to keep it stocked.
Short gist: 12V Input, ESP32S2, ESPHome-based. Has 4 PWM-fan outputs, onboard temperature & humidity sensor and Qwiic expansion port.
The ESPHome code & schematic is on Github: https://github.com/zeroflow/wifi-fancontroller
If you want one, it's available on Elecrow for $35,99: https://www.elecrow.com/wifi-fancontroller1.html
If you want to build it by yourself, the schematic is in the hardware folder. And if you don't want to use ESPHome - there is no firmware lock, you find the pin assignment on the product page and can write your own firmware if you so desire.
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