Backstory (tl;dr easily switch between my computer and phone (android desktop mode) with the push of a button).

I have the button, but the USB the cables seems to need to be juuuuust right for desktop mode to kick in.

The plan is to affix a USBC phone stand to my desk that I can just plunk the phone in there without fiddling with the cables every time. I tried the MCON Dock but the USB is apparently charge only.

Any products out there anyone is aware of?

My company enacted a strict "no personal use" policy for company hardware. I have my boss's blessing to use a personal machine but at the same time I don't want to make it obvious to everyone when I'm doing personal tasks, so the plan is to get a USB-C switch connected to the docking station and a micro-PC tucked under my desk I can quickly switch to.

Any suggestions for mini hardware that only needs a USB-C connection? It does not need to be powerful, since I'm really going to be using it as a web browser.

My goal is to to fully ditch Google Photos for Immich. I have about ~3TB of photos and videos. Looking for a super simple way of backing up the library to cloud storage in case of a drive failure without spending a ton.

Ideally, this will require nothing on my part besides copying files into a given folder. And ideally the storage will be encrypted and have basic privacy assurances.

Also if it matters my home server is running Debian. But I'd prefer something that runs in docker so I can more easily check on it remotely.

I run Home Assistant in a virtual machine on my home server. Sometimes I need to restart it and I'm not always in a position to SSH or VNC in and I can never remember the command so I have to look it up every time. Is there anything out there that would allow me to do this quickly?

EDIT: The VM is in virtualbox.

I have CasaOS and I installed this https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/overseerr

Is there an easy way to simply upgrade it like a normal update and keep the settings?

Here is my setup:

I have multiple DuckDNS domains (and subdomains) pointing to my home IP. My home router has port 80 and port 443 forwarded to Nginx Proxy Manager on my home server. Nginx Proxy Manager points to the appropriate docker container and each one is encrypted with Let's Encrypt.

Am I missing anything here or is this how I'm supposed to be doing it? Every app that has a DuckDNS url has a password in some shape or form.

I want to keep using Google Wallet, so I won't install Graphene, but I'm curious what some best practices are (privacy and otherwise) for an unused stock android (Pixel 9)?

The plan so far is install Aurora to get F-Droid and install what apps I can from there before checking elsewhere.

Also wondering if Google accounts be used on an app-by-app basis or do I need to sign in to the entire phone?

I'm considering a smart watch for exercise with streaming music and heart monitor without my phone, but have no idea how they work. Do smart watches have their own app store? Is there an f-droid for them?

No budget for now, and I own the SSDs already I just want to know what's out there and what other people like.

My current setup is cobbled together from random parts and the HDDs are loud in my bedroom. I want all SSD storage (at least 4x) but with enough CPU/Ram to handle a lot of apps/VMs and some above-average demanding tasks (jellyfin, syncthing) than just being a NAS.

The only other criteria is that I would prefer it to be as small as possible (not rack mount).

I recently asked the /c/Android community what information Google has access to on stock Android, assuming the user is not using any Google apps, and was told Google has full "unstoppable" access to the entire device, including Signal messages, the microphone, duckduckgo search history and anything displayed on the screen at all times.

Does this mean that encrypted messaging is essentially pointless to use on Android? I'm a newb here so go easy on me.

I want to know if it's reasonable to expect a degree of privacy with stock android.

These are both essentially selfhosted replacements for Pocket.

Anyone try them and have experiences to share? The feature set seems similar.

EDIT: From the comments I'm seeing so far it seems that as of now they are indeed very similar!