Two weeks in. 23 containers. $0 hardware. Built from e-waste in a 40ft fifth wheel.
Here's what's running and where it's headed.
WHAT'S LIVE:
Suricata + Zeek — dual IDS watching every packet
Wazuh — SIEM + forensics
CrowdSec — crowdsourced threat intel
AdGuard + Unbound — private DNS chain
Node-RED + MQTT — automation nervous system and sensor bus
Local LLMs on a salvaged GTX 1050 Ti
Custom AI memory system — persistent context across sessions
TTS engine — she talks back
Grafana + InfluxDB — dashboards and telemetry
WHAT'S COMING — THE RV BECOMES SENTIENT:
Every light, shade, lock, and climate system on the MQTT bus. ESPHome sensors on every surface — doors, windows, water tanks, chassis vibration, air quality. Zigbee mesh throughout. Frigate NVR with local AI object detection on cameras. Presence tracking via Bluetooth beacons — the AI knows which room you're in and adapts around you.
Power monitoring on every circuit. Weather station on the roof feeding solar predictions. Water quality sensors on the freshwater input. TPMS on every wheel. GPS geofencing so the rig starts warming up when the truck gets close.
All local. All self-hosted. All orchestrated by one AI brain that never sleeps.
BUT HERE'S THE PART THAT KEEPS ME UP AT NIGHT:
A weatherproof helipad and charging station on the roof. A coordinated drone fleet. Not one drone doing laps — multiple birds working together, redistributing tasks if one returns to charge.
Drone-to-drone mesh communication. They talk to each other. If comms drop, failsafe protocols bring them home.
Routine perimeter inspections of my own property on schedule. Spot checks triggered by IDS alerts. Aerial inspection when the network sees something unusual. Systematic grid mapping with thermal imaging. Site photogrammetry when parked somewhere new — build a local map before I even step outside.
Ground-deployed sensor packages — temp, air quality, gas detection. Instant remote monitoring posts without leaving the rig.
The IDS sees an anomaly. The AI evaluates. Drones launch under operator authority. Live feeds processed on-stack. Drones dock, charge, wait.
A 40ft fifth wheel with its own air force. Controlled by an AI that runs on a machine someone threw in the trash.
All on cellular. No fixed address. No cloud. Self-hosted everything on a machine someone threw away. Self-taught everything from scratch.
No reason. Just wanted to see if I could.
#homelab #selfhosted #infosec #drones #AI #IoT #automation #linux #RVlife
