Meh. I don't remember the last time I handled cash - never touch the stuff. I don't even have to swipe anymore...contactless tap ftw.

lol - that won't work for me, I live in Texas and that means my light would always be deep, dark red. Cool concept though.

As I replied to another who suggested ESPHome - I don't want a bunch boards and wires stuck everywhere and unless I am misunderstanding it I'll need to get into 3d printing to make enclosures for stuff. I can see going there some day but no room for a makerspace in this house until the boy moves out.

You don't need to unlock your phone to fire an event in HomeAssistant. My iPhone needs to be awake but will still scan and run shortcut while locked.

I don't do NVR - my servers are all low power except my PleX and I have so much storage dedicated to that I just can't see adding more. All cameras have SD storage and I have key events backing up to cloud.

Done all that except the Xmas stuff - my neighbor across the street puts up incredible holiday lighting all year long...literally tens of thousands of dollars worth of gear in play. I can't afford to even make a showing next to that.

Yes, LEDs and water flow and voice control among other goodies.

I keep hearing ESPHome but it seems so bare metal - how do you make the little boards look like they belong? I really don't want to have to start 3d printing stuff to make enclosures.

I do but Mrs has clearly stated that she dislikes light level automations - I have a couple FP2 presence sensors and I set up various zones so the light would follow you around and dim asa you left. I wigged her out.

Actually NFC tags were one of my first things back when I was using HomeKit. They are much better in HA because you can fire an event without any interaction with the device that scans it and that is pretty cool.

Thanks, I have a 10-pack of tags that I could deploy to do random stuff for my own enjoyment. I appreciate the reminder!

I couldn't find one that made me happy and finally decided to forget physical arming and disarming - I use companion app location (home/away) and automations to arm and disarm. All exterior doors have presence sensors near them and when armed home if presence is detected near a door it can be opened and the alarm is disarmed. I haven't had an accidental trigger so far.

I can't help you with that but it brought to mind a funny story. I was at a customer's house doing some work and she was on a conference call so unable to be attentive. Her robot vac started working the bedrooms and bathroom where her catbox was and that glorious kitty had kicked out a sizable nugget that the robot grabbed and smeared all the way down the carpeted hallway and back.

Don't sweat the RAM. The M series really are different than the intel forebears. You'll be fine with all of your considered options.