You should absolutely go for it. Start even simpler and with lower investment if you want, too. These systems are easy to get running and you can gradually add sensors and automation as you go.
I wish I started a lot earlier, but I was constantly trying to have the right stuff, or enough stuff to get started with the perfect setup. It turns out that makes no sense. You’re going to make mistakes, learn stuff, figure out what you like and don’t like, etc.
Starting with a bare bones setup using NFT, not even in a grow tent necessarily, you’ll figure out really quickly what you want to do with it and how to move forward.
Something I also didn’t really understand or consider is how easy it is to add sensors or update firmware gradually. Each of the sensors I use is useful independently or together; it’s totally fine to start with just one. Though most important is arguably water and air temperature; you’ll use those to accurately adjust other sensor readings, and in the short term, they’re immediately critical to plant health.
I’ve got a small system running on my old deep water culture equipment in my outdoor greenhouse, and I actually check its pH with plain old pH testing drops, a vial, and a card with the colours to match against. It works totally fine. While it won’t teach you about automation, it’ll get you familiar with how your system responds to different conditions, what the pH tends to do with the plants you’re growing, and so on. This is all invaluable and I wish I knew it before I started automating. I would have written better code from the beginning.
How practical is it to do any of this in an apartment, and in a living space? I’m very interested but don’t have any space outside the apartment I live in.
Totally practical in my opinion. I used to have a small tent in a closet, and while it needs ventilation, decent air and water pumps are not that loud at all these days. Some people even build cabinets to hold their systems, so they can go in a laundry room or similar space and be easier to access and vent:
pH: https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2069.html
EC: https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2565.html
Water temperature: https://www.adafruit.com/product/381
CO2: https://www.adafruit.com/product/5190
Air temp and humidity: https://www.adafruit.com/product/3251
There are others but I’ll have to dig into it! I think you could spend less on alternatives, too.