A Raspberry Pi can take over a DVR, a password manager and a price tracker, three jobs many people pay for. How-To Geek says each is a weekend project.
A Raspberry Pi, the credit-card-sized computer popular with hobbyists, can replace some things you pay for every month. How-To Geek writer Patrick Campanale points to three: a DVR that records TV, a password manager, and a tool that watches prices ahead of Black Friday. He says none of them take long to set up.
A DVR records shows so you can watch later. Cable and online TV services often bundle one in, and those services still cost a lot. The do-it-yourself version needs an antenna, a network TV tuner and a Pi running Plex or Jellyfin, two programs that organize and play video.
The article suggests an HDHomeRun tuner, which is a one-time purchase. Live local channels then show up in the Plex or Jellyfin screen, much like cable. You can also record, say, Sunday's football game and watch it later. Recordings go to a NAS (a storage box on your home network) or an external drive.
Over-the-air TV has grown, too. The author notes that channels like Movies! now run films around the clock.
Vaultwarden is an unofficial server that works with Bitwarden's apps and browser extension. The apps connect to your Pi instead of Bitwarden's servers. It supports sharing passwords, emergency access and several kinds of two-step login, including YubiKey.
Bitwarden has a free plan. According to the article, hosting Vaultwarden yourself gives you the features of Bitwarden Premium at no cost. You also decide how securely the data is stored. You could keep your vaults reachable only on your home network.
PriceBuddy is a self-hosted price tracker. You paste in a product link, and it checks the price on a schedule. It keeps a history graph and can compare listings across stores. The author says it beats services like camelcamelcamel or Keepa on alerts, which can go to:
Vaultwarden needs HTTPS, the secure connection behind the padlock in a browser. The article says you can set that up on your home network with Caddy or Nginx Proxy Manager, paired with something like Pi-hole, so your data never leaves your network.
The author is also candid. He has used 1Password for over a decade and does not plan to switch. The Pi route is for people who want to save money and run the security themselves.
If you have a spare Raspberry Pi, a DVR, a self-hosted password manager or a price tracker could replace a subscription, though the password setup is the most hands-on.
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