And you could probably replace whatever Tuya does with Esp32;)

I’ve been using Zamel MEW-01 (https://supla.zamel.com/product/monitor-energii-elektrycznej-wi-fi-3fn-mew-01/) for about 3 years now. I think that would also match your needs? Works really great, connects to MQTT and has 3 versions (they differ by antenna type).

That’s just Home Assistant OS packaged in OVA.

Have you looked up what “planned obsolescence” is?

I’m using a WH2650A weather station, and I believe it does not need an internet connection to work at all, and I have been able to connect it to HA locally.

Yeah, that would definitely help

How does running your music service through a VPN improve privacy?

Why do you need to be behind VPN?

This. I bought a few myself, but didn’t have time to put them together with ESP32/program them with ESPHome

I am using a few of self-built assistants using https://github.com/formatBCE/Koala-Satellite/tree/main - which was heavily inspired and uses a lot of very similar hardware to HA Voice. I have to say my speakers turned out pretty great.

From Zigbee devices I’d highly recommend the ones from Ikea (Somrig, Styrbar, Symfonisk - depending on what you’re going to use it for), and there are a lot more on AliExpress.

Another route might be using ESPHome and program something like Cheap Yellow Display (5-10$ on AliExpress) with LVGL.