This is the correct answer if privacy is your priority. They’re not particularly cheap, however.

I’ve done the same! It’s impossible to buy dumb TVs nowadays, but you can always prevent them from connecting to the network.

Chuck 'em in the garbage and get something that doesn’t break when you insist on privacy.

Fair enough.

Thank you for the detailed response! I’m going to give it a try! This will be a step up from OpenWRT on a cheap router, I’ll bet!

Can a device like this act as my router?

Unraid is a great option for anyone, but beginners in particular. It does, however, cost money and isn’t open source.

Sorry, the video takes too long to get to the subject it claims to be about.

https://docs.paperless-ngx.com/

Also, you can host your own server: https://headscale.net/

You’d also need GPIO pins to be able to do the remote “button presses”.

Check out pikvm: https://pikvm.org/

There are cheaper knockoffs that run the same software. For example: https://geekworm.com/

Decent older servers (e.g., Dell Poweredge) can be had off of Craigslist/FB Marketplace pretty cheaply (~$300-$400).