About — The person behind the lab
Hi, I'm Charles.
I run the systems I build.
Systems engineer running a production homelab with 174TB of storage, 35+ Docker containers, 45+ Home Assistant automations, local voice control, and an ESP32 sensor mesh. I deploy local AI infrastructure on three V100 GPUs, orchestrate multi-agent development with Claude Code, and build the same systems I use every day.
This homelab started as a personal exploration into home automation, IoT development, and self-hosted infrastructure. It's evolved into a production environment that runs 24/7, handling everything from media streaming to local AI inference to smart home control.
01 — The setup
The hardware underneath.
Server hardware
Network
02 — Key technologies
What the lab runs on.
Home Automation
Home Assistant with local voice control, ESP32 sensor mesh, and 45+ YAML automations
Containerization
Docker containers for services, applications, and development environments
Local AI
Ollama for LLM inference, Whisper for speech recognition, Piper for TTS
IoT & Sensors
ESP32 mesh network with ESPHome, distributed sensors, and local processing
AI-Assisted Development
Multi-worker Claude Code orchestration with custom coordination system
03 — Philosophy
Rules the lab
lives by.
Self-hosted first: Prefer local solutions over cloud dependencies
Privacy-focused: Data stays on-premises when possible
Open source: Using and contributing to open source projects
Learning by doing: Building to understand, not just using
04 — Experience
Years against the craft.
Infrastructure & DevOps
Unraid, Docker, VMs, networking, backups
5+ yearsHome Automation
Home Assistant, YAML automations, IoT devices
3+ yearsMobile Development
React Native, Expo, TypeScript
2+ yearsAI/ML Integration
Local LLMs, Ollama, Claude API, automation
1+ yearsWork together
Want to work
together?
I'm available for freelance development work — homelabs, home automation, networking, and mobile app development. Everything I build for clients is battle-tested on my own production systems.