I went on a trip. My Mac mini stayed home and kept texting me.
I left town for a few days. The Mac mini stayed back, ran on its own, took orders from my phone, and pinged me about everything. This is what that felt like.
My Raspberry Pi could not carry the dream. A 2018 Mac mini could.
I wanted a small army of agents running 24x7 and a place to host all my homelab apps. The Pi was never going to do it. A colleague handed me his 2018 Mac mini and the whole thing took shape in one sitting.