Self host your music (plex or navidrome). Was the first and best thing i ever bought homelab equipment to do. Get used to smart playlists.

For recommendations, I had to code up my own app to close the gap. Nothing out there really put new stuff on a platter in my face and made it easy to grab the way I wanted it. Im a busy bee so we'll see if i ever refactor it for general use beyond just exactly what I need it to be.

Never really used true radio features. I mainly lean on tags, ratings, and smart playlists, so not too much of a help there. I think Plex has some sonic analysis and radio bits, but YMMV

Yeah, will not work for everything. Things with actual phone/TV apps generally dont like it. That being said, it still helps for a large swath of my setup

I've had good success spinning up an authentik instance, and having my reverse proxy hit it first before it routes to the actual app. Puts another security layer in front in case sonarr itself has an issue, for ex.

Caddy snippet

handle {$host} {
		route {
			# always forward outpost path to actual outpost
			reverse_proxy /outpost.goauthentik.io/* authentik-server-1:9000

			# forward authentication to outpost
			forward_auth authentik-server-1:9000 {
				uri /outpost.goauthentik.io/auth/caddy

				# capitalization of the headers is important, otherwise they will be empty
				copy_headers X-Authentik-Username X-Authentik-Groups X-Authentik-Entitlements X-Authentik-Email X-Authentik-Name X-Authentik-Uid X-Authentik-Jwt X-Authentik-Meta-Jwks X-Authentik-Meta-Outpost X-Authentik-Meta-Provider X-Authentik-Meta-App X-Authentik-Meta-Version
			}
			
			reverse_proxy {this_host_or_ip}:{this_port}
		}
}

Not gonna solve all your problems. Works for 70% of apps. Nice to slap on when you can.

You can download playlists just fine. I'll go on vacation all the time and listen offline the whole time.

And you dont need to run a server on each device. Plexamp and/or Symphonium are just apps for your phone. It's all "local" when the laptop with the server/music and your phone are in your own house, especially navidrome. If you want to hit that server on the internet, thats a homelab project to dip your toes into when you feel like it.

Try out smart playlists. Plex, navidrome, etc. Let's you set up a list that will only play songs you havent heard in months

Eh, dont agree. Yeah, I think listening to a whole album is important on occasion and can give a cool perspective. But I've found that the range of things I enjoy increases with shuffle. There's so much stuff that I love... in unexpected short spurts. Im not talking hits, but just random decent stuff. I think there's something lost when an album has to be good enough that you intentionally pull it off the shelf and listen to it for an hour. Hordes of cool things won't meet that level.

Niri is crazy good. I get itchy without it now

• havent figured out how to rate well when driving. Definitely a PITA.
• i considered skipped counts a bit, but ultimately felt it would end up hiding songs that were good but required me to be in a specific mood to appreciate. I wanted to be the judge of if something was good and feel free to skip good things when I felt like it.
• another thing my suite was missing was the new music discovery story. Made a personal app myself to fill that gap, but would love to see a more robust community solution someday. Maybe ill give it a proper dev pass someday and publish

Star ratings and smart playlists! Oh my! I love this stuff. Im currently using plex, which allows for half stars since im a masochist

I dont know that I need the full ten options, but 5 wasn't quite enough for me. If there was like 7 star system id do that, hah.

• 0.5 - I would delete if other people weren't listening to the library. Never play again
• 1 - on my shitlist. Unless something changes, will probably go to 0.5 stars the next time I hear it.
• 1.5 to 2 - Not opposed, but forgettable or slightly not my style
• 2.5 - average content. Not memorable but fine
• 3 - solid content, still not memorable
• 3.5 - the good stuff. I'll put it on a solo car ride and generally not skip
• 4 - Amazing songs. If I was to put a Playlist on for other people and not worry about it
• 4.5 - Favorite songs. Maybe a fault or two but will still stay with me for a lifetime
• 5 - Id play these for anyone without hesitation and then look at them and say "was that not perfection?!"

For smart playlists:

• playlists by star rating
  • alts for excluding facemelting stuff to play in public
• Car ride - 3.5 stars and up + havent heard in a month
• "Frontier" playlist. Only play things i havent heard in a year that aren't 0.5 stars

I generally listen to my frontier Playlist and try to rate as I go. Other playlists for when im listening but busy and just want the good stuff.

I havent found a good way to tag on the go, unfortunately. Maybe someday

I use pangolin as the front, which checks in with Authentik as the SSO before it lets anyone through to the actual apps. Pangolin itself acts a bit like my reverse proxy so my caddy takes a back seat and isnt used for too much. Pangolin comes with crowdsec as well.

Yup, its a good game as well. It's a bit too zippy fast paced for my tastes. Everyone jumping and ziplining everywhere ruins a lot of the cool positional tactics that can manifest in games that keep the movement abilities modest. By the time someone calls out a position its already moot information. But finals makes up for it in other ways like the destruction, etc. Definitely a good game

The hook for me is the lack of respawn numbness. Something about insta respawn shooters just turns my brain off and lulls me into boring mental stagnation as I throw myself on the gears. It's the high longer term stakes that are the interesting part. Failing in the heat of the short moment, and thinking back on what you mightve done better. But you'll never experience that exact situation again, so you just try to carry your lessons forward. It's a different pacing that keeps things novel and memorable