This is the way to do it. I made a simple relay plus outlet where any 5v signal would turn the outlet off, and used it to control my router.

Eventually I got a better modem that I could reboot with a software command, then later an even better one that would auto sense problems and recover.

A bunch of little things for me, little steps down the road to hell:

• Google print worked, and then it died, with no replacement. So, I built a print server.
• Google music was awesome, I could upload my whole library and stream it anywhere. It was easily accessible through any Google device. Then it died and became Yahoo music, and… I can’t stream it anywhere. I can barely find it.
• Netflix went from “Share your password!” to “You need a premium account to stream above SD quality lol”. It’s awful trying to find shows these days. The last five movies I wanted to stream, I would have needed five different streaming services. I did the math, and realized it was cheaper for me to physically purchase the DVDs and rip them than to stream them. Jellyfin it is!
• I started with Vivint for smart house stuff, realized it was hella expensive and switched to Wink and Alarm. com, then realized it was still expensive and super limited, so I switched to OpenHAB.

That last one was probably the biggest eye-opener. There are so many paid services that are objectively worse than basic free self-hosted services. Wink was ok, but I can do so much more without it. And none of this was hard. I spent hours setting up Jellyfin, but it took less time than for me to work to pay for 6 streaming services. Sure, it doesn’t have the latest whatever, but so what? At least I know where to find where Stargate: SG1 is streaming!

Z-Wave tends to be a little pricier than Zigbee, and lots more than your bottom-of-the-barrel WiFi bulb. Not everyone wants RGB lights, either, and many switches are connected to multiple bulbs, so it makes more sense to use regular dimmable bulbs with a smart switch than smart bulbs. Finally, smart bulbs are a huge pain. Either they have some long, complicated routine to put them in pairing mode (30 seconds off, 10 seconds on, 5 seconds off, 5 seconds on, 3 seconds off, then on), or it’s too simple (factory reset by turning off and on the times within 10 seconds - your power flickered? Sucks to be you!).

The one place I wanted RGB, I got strip lights with the Zooz Z-Wave light strip controller; everywhere else I just use dimmer switches.

There’s a Hue bridge that I believe works entirely locally that may work for you, to connect Hue bulbs. They do use Zigbee, though.

For what I use it for, Portainer feels like using a dump truck to carry groceries. Sure, it gets the job done, but I’m not using half of it, and there are a bunch of things that I’d like to do with it that are either way too complex, or just missing. For instance, it should be able to set up simple scripts, like “run this container every night”, or “restart this container once a week”, or “upgrade these containers automatically”.

I’ve got a file called “TODO server stuff.txt” with some notes from 2019, does that count?

Something like Steam. I’ve got a bunch of old games and other software, CDs, floppy images, etc., with registration keys and so forth (sometimes multiples), as well as newer stuff I got through Humble Bundle, or even various free/open source games, servers, etc., but installing them can be a pain. I’d like something that could host the files, list the games, and install them on a whim, along with self-hosted “cloud” storage so I can switch between computers easily. I already use Steam, of course, but it doesn’t host my old games, at least not without paying them for the privilege. My boss… Would probably be interested, actually. Not business related, but still.