If you’re on Debian, it’s the tried and true method. The config is dead simple for most upgrades, just un-comment the line in the config file next to the type of upgrades you want, stable or testing. It can take some debugging if you have a package with it’s own APT repo. It’ll just ignore those updates by default.

unattended-upgrades is annoying? How so?

For Unifi devices you setup a Virtual Network then assign the guests to that. https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000166827-UniFi-Hotspot-Portal-and-Guest-WiFi

Ever hear of the fable “The boy who cried wolf”?

One catch is that you have to assume it’s gonna be sending data to China or at least have a hidden backdoor, possibly both. That may not matter depending on what they are doing.

We used this when we had cats: https://tabcat.com

It’s expensive up front but works pretty well and no hosting fees. Of course it’s not GPS so you kinda gotta know the general area the cat is in. But it was great for getting the cats in out of the yard. They would hide when it was time to come in until we got this. Worked ok for finding them in the neighborhood as well, just walked around pointing the remote everywhere. The collar tags are nice and small as well.

OrangePi is pretty nice. Built in 8gb eMMC module is a huge performance boost. Only $60 with case and PSU.

This is for my users, none of whom are experienced enough to do offline image editing.

Welcome to Costco, I love you

Eaton. Just replaced most of our APC with them and have been pretty impressed so far.

Puts the S in HTTPS. Free. Get an ACME client for your service. https://acmeclients.com

Get an eMMC module ($10) for the Pi or buy something similar with one built-in. Much faster and more reliable.

I’d say it was the fan that solved the overheating problem, not the zip ties.

Oscilloscope can do it - https://hackaday.com/2020/12/14/dead-simple-time-domain-reflectometry-with-just-a-battery-and-an-oscilloscope/

OrangePi makes a decent solution with a built-in 8GB eMMC module. Makes it much faster. Dunno if you are CPU or IO bound on the RPi4.