I got fed up about paying too many subscription fees to too many corporations that locked me in to apps with frustrating performance issues, that didn't compensate creators and artists fairly, harvested my data for their own gain, flooded me with advertisements, and didn't use their profits for causes I agree with.
This project aims to be the exact opposite. Our goal is to spend the same amount of money on media, but to give that money directly to artists. All of the software on this server is free and open source software with an emphasis on protocols over platforms and is based on media that we actually own.
Our music collection is available through an app called Navidrome. Navidrome implements a protocol called Subsonic so there are tons of apps that connect to it. Here's the apps I'm using:
This is mostly just Chris's and Krista's iTunes libraries from ~2012 which had some regrettable taste. We filtered this library to keep only complete albums, and passed all of our music through MusicBrainz to clean it up.
I plan to expand it by purchasing from bands I support during Bandcamp Fridays.
Let me know if you have suggestions or want to contribute!
Movies and TV shows are available through an app called Jellyfin. It has a nice web interface, and you can connect to it through a bunch of official and unofficial clients. Here is a nice list.
We usually stream to our Chromecast. This works well on the official Jellyfin Android app but not on the iPhone app. On my iPhone, I'm currently using Infuse instead.
Our photos are backed up and categorized in an app called Immich. Its goal is to be a full-featured alternative to Google Photos, so it includes AI search, face recognition, memories, etc. It also has a nice mobile app which automatically backs up phone photos.
This one is in testing. Will write more about it soon!
This is the tool that controls all of the switches, buttons, lights, and speakers throughout our house. It has a nice web interface and a nice mobile app
In this app, there's a plugin called Music Assitant that I use to play music from our music library to our Sonos speakers.
Automatically downloads youtube videos so that we can stream them later. I'm mostly using this for school stuff - I often have trouble loading youtube videos on my school network
It's possible to link this to Jellyfin, but for now I'm keeping it separate
All of this is running on a cheap computer in my basement that is too small and probably wondering what it did to deserve its fate. I can't make any guarantees about speed or uptime, but I'm excited to work on it. For any questions, suggestions, or help, text me.
Here are some other apps that I'd like to add: