ESP32 and MicroPython: Getting Your First Device Talking to a VPS
Why the ESP32 specifically For anyone building their first genuinely custom IoT device, rather than buying something pre-made, the ESP32 is the natural starting point: a few pounds…
Self-Hosting Guides
MQTT Security: TLS, Authentication and ACLs Done Properly
What’s actually at risk with unsecured MQTT This builds directly on Self-Hosted MQTT Broker on a VPS and the broader principles in the VPS Security Hardening Checklist, applied…
WireGuard Hub VPS for IoT
The problem this solves A fleet of cellular routers spread across multiple sites, common in retail, industrial and remote monitoring deployments, traditionally faced a frustrating choice: expensive site-to-site…
ThingsBoard VPS Sizing & Hosting Requirements
Why this is a separate guide from the setup walkthrough ThingsBoard Self-Hosted: Complete VPS Setup Guide covers getting ThingsBoard running. This guide covers a different, equally important question:…
Grafana + InfluxDB on a VPS: Building an IoT Dashboard
The problem this solves MQTT and Node-RED, covered in this site’s other guides, move and process data well, but neither is built for answering “what did this value…
ChirpStack LoRaWAN Network Server on a VPS
The problem this solves Everything else on this site assumes devices with reasonably steady power and either Wi-Fi or a cellular connection. Plenty of real IoT use cases…
ThingsBoard Self-Hosted: Complete VPS Setup Guide
The problem this solves Building an IoT dashboard from individual pieces, an MQTT broker, Node-RED for logic, Grafana for visualisation, works well and is covered elsewhere on this…
Docker on a VPS: Running Multiple IoT Services
The problem this solves Installing Mosquitto, Node-RED and a database directly onto a VPS works fine until you need to upgrade one of them, or remove one cleanly,…
Self-Hosted MQTT Broker on a VPS (Mosquitto)
The problem MQTT actually solves Without a message broker, every device-to-device or device-to-dashboard connection is its own point-to-point integration: your doorbell talks to its own app, your thermostat…
Node-RED on a VPS: Install, Secure, Access Remotely
The problem this solves Vendor automation apps work fine until you want a rule that spans two vendors: “if the doorbell detects a person AND nobody’s home, turn…