About
Hi, I’m Harald — an engineer and tinkerer at heart. devmaker.net is my public notebook: not a magazine and not a news ticker, but documentation from real setups in my homelab and workshop.
Professionally I come from test automation in software development. In my free time I tinker with servers, microcontrollers and 3D printers — and write down what worked and what didn’t.
Behind the articles sits a homelab that has grown over time: a Debian server with Docker, Home Assistant for home automation, various ESP32/ESP8266 sensors via ESPHome, a 3D printer running Klipper and the usual cable mess in between. A lot of it has been running for years — and it’s exactly this long-term experience (what lasts, what annoys, what I ended up throwing out again) that I try to capture here.
What I write about
Everything I run, repair, or broke and got working again myself:
- Linux & self-hosting — Docker, reverse proxy, backups and monitoring on your own server
- Home automation — ESPHome, Home Assistant, Z-Wave and Zigbee
- Embedded & electronics — ESP32/ESP8266, RISC-V, sensors and a bit of PCB design
- 3D printing — Klipper, Bambu and the small pitfalls in between
- AI & automation — agents, MCP servers and CI/CD for hobby projects
How I write
Pragmatic and honest. Every article is based on a real setup — with the hardware I actually use and the mistakes I actually made. I also write about what I deliberately left out, and why a setup is sometimes ‘good enough’ rather than over-engineered. Code examples are tested, not copy-pasted snippets.
This blog exists because I didn’t want to forget the solutions I had painstakingly pieced together — and because other people’s honest write-ups have often helped me the most. If an article saves you an hour of searching, it has done its job.
Contact
Got a question, a correction or found a better way? I’m glad about every message — feel free to write to me via the Contact form. Real-world feedback is what I appreciate most.