Been thinking about building this and want a sanity check before I commit time to it.
The problem: Most homes now have a bunch of cheap IoT devices (smart plugs, cameras, TVs, thermostats) that constantly talk to the internet, and basically nobody — including most security tools — knows what's "normal" for any given device. Existing network monitors (Fing, GlassWire, router apps) show you raw traffic, but they don't tell you whether a behavior is expected for that specific device, and they're not very approachable for non-technical people.
The idea: A local-first app (Pi or old laptop) that:
- Passively watches your home network for a few days and builds a "normal behavior" profile for each device, in plain English ("your camera talks to AWS a few times an hour, that's normal")
- Uses a local LLM to flag deviations from that baseline and explain them simply, with suggested next steps — no jargon, no CVE numbers
- Lets you ask it questions in chat ("why is my internet slow," "is this normal for my TV")
- Eventually, opt-in crowdsourced device fingerprints so the community builds up "what's normal" for common devices over time
Everything local/private, no cloud, no data leaving the network unless you opt into sharing anonymized fingerprints.
Questions for you all:
- Does this solve a real pain point, or is it solving a problem nobody actually has?
- Is there existing tooling that already does this well that I'm missing?
- Would non-technical people actually use this, or is the audience just hobbyists who'd rather use Pi-hole + existing tools?
Open to "this is dumb, do X instead" feedback too.
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