Underneath, it uses WebRTC (the same tech as Google Meet). It is free to use, I just built to fix this problem that I have... I am quite surprised expats only get by using a traditional VPN whose IPs are known by online services...

FYI: There's a typo in the URL you posted, an extra `n` :)

I can't get into work from a non-US IP, but I can Tailscale back to my house and it works just fine. I even gave my in-laws (who live several states away) an AppleTV box running TS just to have another endpoint if for some reason the power goes out at my house while I'm gone (rare, but happens).

I can't find it right now but there was a post announcing the port to tvOS on their blog where a developer from the UK (but living in the US) talked about how it let him buy, configure, and ship a simple consumer box that uses little power and needs minimal hands-on maintenance to his parents' house as a replacement for a server he had been running in their house as a VPN endpoint for this sort of thing - so he could watch BBC, etc.

I wouldn't want to update a RPi that's in someone else's house on the other side of the ocean.

While I still prefer running a plain Wireguard VPN if possible (i.e. when there's a publicly reachable UDP port), the really big advantage of Tailscale over other solutions is that it has great NAT traversal, so it's possible to run a routing node behind all kinds of nasty topologies (CG-NAT, double NAT, restrictive firewalls etc.)

At worst, I turn on phone hotspot, authenticate, then switch back to WiFi. A purely serendipitous discovery on my part, but a very welcome one.

Wish I’d read this a few hours ago and the AppleTV would be coming with me.

(There’s another really shitty VPN app for tvOS that I tried, but it also costs money so screw that. It’s also buggy as hell and crashes all the time.)

I should add that my use case is the occasional trip where we take the Apple TV with us places and want to access my media library. Or being able to share my media library with extended family (setting their Apple TV up with a vpn to my house.) More complex things like travel routers can work, but are more hassle than I want, although I’m increasingly leaning towards taking the plunge there…

You could create an account with any one of their identity providers (or roll your own OIDC, it's possible) and just have it not have a linked credit card. The account you use to authenticate Tailscale doesn't have to be the Apple account that you use to log into the hardware device itself - my wife's laptop, phone, and iPads are logged in under my Tailscale account but separate Apple/iCloud accounts (we have family sharing for our apps, etc., but the TS is usually going to be up to me, so I haven't created another account for her). Free gets you 100 devices, so we're nowhere close to running out of those.

personally, I've just upgraded my family's wifi to Ubiquiti and can then use Tailscale Wireguard running on the gateway as a proxy! (with their permission)

The distinction between AppleTV, the hardware, and Apple TV+, the streaming service, was lost on many. Now that they are “Apple TV 4K” hardware and “Apple TV” service, it’s even harder to convey the correct meaning.

I've literally not seen one in anyone's home for probably 5+ years. And even then nobody used them.

Apple TV was one of those products that relatively few people bought but they were loud about buying it, so it seemed more popular than it was. Then other services like Roku($20) quickly replaced it.

I'm in the USA.

I agree you could send them a preconfigured pi, but can we stop pretending talescale is just wireguard - there is a lot of convenience in the NAT traversal that you otherwise need router config and/or a publically routable server to achieve.

That's precisely the issue. It introduces additional centralized dependencies and closed source components.

It’s not what I’m comfortable setting up for myself that is the issue; I am willing to put up with oddities for something that is just for my convenience and amusement. The problem is what I am knowledgeable enough to fix from far away if and when it goes wrong, and how to explain to my very non-technical family how to access it.

I have a NAS, and I could roll my own with that (in fact it’s my exit node at home, because I’m fairly sure it has better encryption speed than the AppleTV), but when something I’m in charge of maintaining goes in someone else’s house, the last thing I want to spend my spare time doing is trying to diagnose and fix issues over the phone with people who don’t own a computer.

It’s not the perfect solution to every situation. It is reliant on Tailscale and Apple, and there are cheaper, more capable systems (like the RPi) out there if you have the knowledge and inclination to set them up. But it’s a very, very straightforward solution that is unobtrusive and easy to maintain and thus is extremely well-suited for my needs. I thought it might be for OP as well. Anyone who is willing to shell out €360 a year for a truly residential-IP VPN should at least be made aware that it’s an option.

I love my Pi but sometimes I want life to be mindless easy.

I'd say, anything heavy and random, use the general VPN and the rest use an rpi at your parents' home.

They used government websites as an example, not to say that all of their traffic was to government websites.

For residential IPs you can't even pay per month like normal VPNs, normally they charge per GB, usually over $2 usd per GB.

And I can get a semi-anonymous cable internet connection too (if your line is “hot”, you could sign up with any address… not sure if it has to be under the same node or just the same city). Would be difficult, but not impossible, to track down which residence the shadow connection is coming from.

They likely charge per GB because these residential connections are slow and limited compared to datacenter connections (doesn't help that they're often located in third world countries), and are often used for aggressive scraping, so charging a fixed monthly price would not be viable.