Introduction
I treat the home lab like a miniature production system. The same rules apply: clear data flow, predictable storage, and alerting that does not cry wolf.
Architecture snapshot
- Sensors publish to MQTT.
- Edge collectors normalize payloads.
- A time-series database stores the canonical view.
- Dashboards and alerts use a shared schema.
Small wins
- Naming conventions eliminate half the confusion.
- Grouped alerts keep my phone quiet.
- I store raw sensor data for offline analysis.
This pipeline keeps experiments measurable without becoming a maintenance job.