Home lab: your data at home, your automations, local artificial intelligence
A home lab is a small server set up at your home or workshop. It keeps your files, runs your backups, triggers your automations and, if you want, runs artificial intelligence without sending your documents to a platform. This article explains what it is for, who it suits and what it takes. It promises nothing: it also says where it stops.
1. Your data at home
Your photos, documents, invoices and contracts are stored on a device you own, in your home or workshop. You decide who gets in. Your data stays at home; the only copy that leaves, if you choose to send one, is an encrypted backup kept elsewhere, for the day the hardware fails or is stolen.
It is not magic: a server at home needs updates and power, and it can fail like any device. That is why a tested backup is part of every serious installation.
2. Automations with no software subscription
Automatic backup of your phone photos, an alert when a disk starts to fail, a dashboard of a farm's sensor readings, an archive of the invoices you receive, home automation: most of these tasks run on free or open-source software, which you use under its own licences. You do not pay one more subscription for each.
“No software subscription” does not mean “no cost”. There is the hardware, which you buy yourself, and the installation time, billed by the hour for the time actually spent. The support plan that follows the installation (updates, monitoring) is optional and monthly.
3. Artificial intelligence that works at home
A home lab can run open artificial intelligence models directly on your server. Your documents do not have to leave for a platform: the work is done on your own server. It can transcribe a meeting, summarize documents, sort files or find a piece of information in your own folders.
4. The right size
We offer home labs sized for modest needs. The Tower format is a standard-size desktop computer case, discreet, for an office or a home. The Compact format is a square, low case, quiet, for a counter or a shelf. A small rack, a few units in a closed cabinet or a wall-mounted frame, is not offered yet: it needs more hardware and follow-up and will come later.
We do not install microsystems as the only server, big towers or 12- to 18-unit cabinets: these are enterprise systems, hard to keep running.
5. What a home lab does not do
- It does not make you compliant with Law 25 on its own: it gives you control over your data, and your obligations remain yours.
- It does not replace an off-site backup: without one, a theft or a fire would take everything.
- It does not suit everyone: with a single computer and a few files, an external drive is enough, and we tell you so at the Diagnostic.
6. How an installation works
Everything starts with a one-hour Diagnostic by video call: a review of your needs and an annotated shopping list. The quote gives an estimate in hours with a range, an hourly rate and one rule: we bill the actual time spent. Choosing and buying the hardware is up to you; our recommendations are advice. Sessions are planned together, and you leave with written documentation and backups tested in front of you.
A word of honesty: I have three years of installing computer and cloud systems, and long experience in sales and in advising businesses, which explains how I work, not my technical skill. I am learning the complete home lab with my first clients, and I say so. You are not left with a black box: I explain each step and teach you how to use your system.
Formats, rates, travel and the quote request form: everything is on the Home lab page. Limited spots: I take on only a few projects at a time, to do them well.
See the Home lab page