For those interested, you can get the base config Mac Mini (in the US) for $400 from Micro Center [0]. They don’t seem to ship to where I live, but BestBuy was happy to price match in the support chat.
Just received mine and planned on experimenting with something like OP this weekend.
I understand the need for a dedicated box, but any reason you shouldn't just use a server? What would someone recommend for cloud on something like Hetzner?
Like someone else said, I want to build something that has access to Apple stuff (reminders, iMessage), but also because I want to try to run some small LLM locally in front to route and do tool calling.
For me it was access to Apple ecosystem of things. I used vps but it had to contact my http for reminders and iMessage etc. much nicer in Mac mini. It works better.
In fact, seems much better you'd host something like that outside your own personal network. Given people are getting new hardware for it for "isolation", probably running it somewhere else completely would be better?
I still don't understand why people don't just run it in a VM and separate VLAN instead.
This video is pretty great. “The joke is this is not a joke” comment in there… how many of us understood everything that was said and then felt like maybe we need a different hobby…
Just received mine and planned on experimenting with something like OP this weekend.
[0] https://www.microcenter.com/product/688173/apple-mac-mini-mu...