>1. A shared, collective archive of family photos taken on Androids & iPhones, stored privately, with some backup system.

This is something I want too but not app-ified. I just want a file server to serve a directory and some way to index and search photos without "apps" or web complexity.

> 2. A streaming server that can host the couple of shows my wife & I care about, plus shows we've selected for our kids. Our TV and laptops should be able to stream from the server.

I just use a file server (FreeBSD w/ZFS) and hook a Linux machine to a TV and bypass the TV app swamp. Then you just drag and drop all your TV shows into a playlist then set the media player to shuffle and repeat for random 24/7 TV.

> 3. Speakers placed in various rooms in the house (we have ~8 of them now) that are wirelessly controllable. When they happen to work, our Google Home speakers have been awesome with kids and with hosting.

You need all those speakers? One for each room? If you are entertaining guests usually everyone is in one space so a single portable speaker will work fine. The kids are usually off running around or playing video games not caring about your music selection. If they want their own music then get them their own speaker. Also, think about how those 8 speakers are now 8 pieces of e-waste. The less, the better.

> You need all those speakers? One for each room?

Not op, but one reason I have a speaker in _almost_ every room is for notifications. Simple stuff like "the garage door is still open" or weather alerts, etc. I rarely actually play music on all of them.

Regarding your request for 1, have you looked into Immich [1]? If that's too much, I'd recommend bewCloud [2] (I've created it almost 3 years ago, still going well), since it's really just serving the files (search would have to match the file name, though).

[1]: https://immich.app

[2]: https://bewcloud.com