Yeah, I was also wondering about the transcoding. And thanks for the power draw comment, great to know. Sounds manageable.

I still think you should give this one a try. Unless, you’re goal is not like having an actual solution, but doing this project as a hobby, and throwing some money at it. Which is also fine, I’ve done the same before.

Testing one or two of these media severs will cost you some hours of your time. Anything other will take much more time, effort and money.

Peripherals are one thing, handling concurrent streams, transcoding… is another one.

So in theory, a Pi can be kept alive with a power bank, but OP is expecting (as I understood) multiple hours of streaming (with “local” only access) , which includes the above tasks for multiple concurrent streams. How big of a power bank we’re talking about and how long will it last?

As others already wrote, I would go with the Plex server at home and using the “Download” feature to have some content available offline for the times you don’t have internet. You can actually set a limit for the size of the download library and individually set video and audio quality for the files.

Seen raspberry pi mentioned some times, I don’t have one, so maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think there would be an easy way to power it up on a train for example.

It might be the remastered version. I get your point, and the graphics in AW2 were top notch, but as someone who’s not a huge fan of the horror genre, I kind of felt nostalgic for the original game. Wasn’t that frightening 😀

I’m not familiar with such solutions, but I wouldn’t get your hopes high, as Google Docs is not a collection of publicly available files (like YouTube), rather files closed behind different accesses.

Based on this, depending on how a file is shared with you, you could be asked to authenticate yourself somehow. Without the deeper understanding of your situation, I can only think of one solution: downloading these files with manipulating the links, like this for example (if they are public): https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9045392/getting-the-download-link-for-a-public-google-docs-file?rq=1

If they are not public, I think you still have the chance to do this, but I can’t see any steps around authenticating with Google in their own site. And then download the file.

Just check what privileges these apps ask for when you’re installing them. They could get infinitely more data then “just” the ones tied to the conversations.

So once again my point is that, if their app is not touching my phone, that’s one bullet dodged.

Not sure if you haven’t read my comment, or just didn’t get the jist of it: the point is that you can use the service without installing their crappy app.

Just from Google Photos or IRL? 😀

Not the solution you looking for as I feel, but I leave it here for others to discover: With a home server and proper technical knowledge you can use WhatsApp via Matrix: https://matrix.org/ecosystem/bridges/whatsapp/

This is something I discovered way before, when I was trying to ditch Facebook Messenger. I felt like there’s absolutely no chance to convince everyone around me to use Signal, so even not having the app on the phone looked like an OK option.

Just glancing at the preview, I thought Chance Crawford is doing a Deep dive into a game :)

I’m mostly on board with this, but even with using only trusted, vetted… apps (which is already a huge challenge for some) I wouldn’t go for sure that none of those are going rouge (as we saw before: some adv company buying a decent SW and making it a bloatware).

Getting back to my first point: I just had a situation where I had to install Viber for example, and I can’t stress enough how grateful I was for the Storage and Contact scopes features.

I’m using it on Windows at work and I was also surprised how often it just gets stuck. Deleting the database did help for some time, but then it came back every time I’m sending an email.

Gboard runs OK without any permissions, so if you don’t find anything good enough, that still could be your solution. I tried many other options but haven’t found a bilingual swipe keyboard as good as Gboard unfortunately. I just gave it network permission to download dictionaries, switched off all permissions, and it’s running smooth since months now.

Those purchases will be lost if you want to degoogle. Just went through this some time ago and actually it was a good opportunity to think about which one I’m really using. The ones I really like and there was an opportunity to buy them outside of the Google ecosystem, I rebought (for example Tasker). For all others, I found good replacements.

I feel like their goal is more close to providing a privacy-minded alternative to Google’s G-suite to “regular” users, so for me it totally makes sense. But yeah, I’m also really waiting for the Linux drive app.

Do you have any smart home setup as of now? Asking because if you have a Hue Bridge or Home assistant running at homefor example, that could narrow the results.

I was more thinking about as something that should be baked into the “phone app” from my point of view. So when the phone rings, I’m seeing who calls, why is he calling and what amount of time would he need. If I’m missing the call, I would also see these info in the recent calls.

For me it would help if there would be an option for me to see the at least the reason why the call is being made and also an estimated time of the call.

And with work related calls, it kind of makes me insecure to not know the topic beforehand. I don’t want to blob out some half information. Write it in email, I’ll see for it and get back to you.

So great to meet another PCU fanatic here. Really serious research by AdamEatsAss, job well done.