Do the Ecobees have any issue if you block their access to the internet? Any issues making it lan only?

What self-hosted alternative would you recommend for document collaboration? Word processing docs, spreadsheets, pdf’s, etc.

I was using Nextcloud, but it’s not been as straightforward for file-sharing as I’d like, multiple people can’t work on a document at once, and it doesn’t save changes consistently (especially with fillable PDF’s).

So then save cash, set up a raid array, and get multiple proper backups running. You need to do steps 2 & 3 regardless.