Lots of good info here I’m not going to repeat, but I think if you’re going to open home assistant to the public Internet, you should not use duckdns. It’s better to get your own domain and set up a reverse proxy to use https. Or if it’s too technical, subscribe to nabu casa and let them handle it for you.
Sounds like Scientology
I think the laws need to clarify the difference between just hosting vs suggesting content. Tik Tok should be responsible since it suggested the dangerous video, unlike if it was just hosted on an AWS server.
Poltergeist
I would caution going too far down the custom rabbit hole for something like a light bulb, just because you will eventually have to replace it. At that point I would look at a zigbee/zwave lightbulb with a esp32 in the base powered by a AC to DC converter to control the bulb. You would need a stick to control it but the trade off is a much easier replacement later on.
I missed the part about switching to RGB LED, but I’m not sure if any products are bright enough to be useful. You are right that if you powered the Shelly with ac, it outputs ac, which goes against your Edison bulb replacement idea. If you can find something that runs on 12v (like a light strip), that case no relay would be needed. You could replace the AC cord with a 12v DC adapter to power the lights and use a cheap 5-30v to 5v buck converter to power the esp32.
Do you care about dimming or running an extra cord into the lamp? Someone has done something similar here with just an esp32 and smart switch. If you want just a single cord, you’ll need esp32, AC to DC 5v board, and some dry contact ac relay module. The code would be similar but the esp32 would directly control the relay instead of using a switch.
Edit: thinking about it more, you may also just be able to use a shelly 1 relay flashed with esphome has gpio pins and can run off ac power but it uses an esp8266 so not sure how that would work with capacitive touch.
It might be a good idea for a post. I run HA in docker and haven’t dug into the documentation yet.
I’ve used this remote and it works well but it is zwave. In general, you want battery powered devices to be either zwave or zigbee since they use less power. If you want to connect the smart plugs to an existing switch you can use a Shelly relay or a smart switch
My go-to for anything sensor related is esphome. Maybe a resistance sensor could work for you. https://esphome.io/components/sensor/resistance.html
The games will run at 60hz but will still use PAL colors, so your TV/Adapter needs to support PAL60.
About 30 pins could be used for various inputs depending on the board. Here is a good reference. https://randomnerdtutorials.com/esp32-pinout-reference-gpios/
Wireguard is good if you don’t want easy access to notifications or location based automations. Otherwise you need to always make sure the VPN is on.