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Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

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Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

#581

Post by ocdtrekkie »

Probably the one I'm most proud of is my backup system. It includes:

- My web server making automated backups of it's databases.

- My computer automatically downloading and cleaning up the backups of my web server's databases.

- My other computer making a copy of the important files on my computer (including, of course, website database backups).

- My offsite machine making a copy of all of that in another location.

At the end of this process: My important personal files are currently stored on five hard drives in two physical locations. All of this happens without me really paying attention to it.

Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

#582

Post by desaiguddu »

marcol1n0 wrote: post #544

My mum did run a B&B, in Italy, on the sea. Me and my sister do live in different cities. She was quite old, but did not want any help from strangers. She did refuse to use a computer keyboard, since she hated informatization, and her sight was short. So I did automate a system for her to scan the guests documents, detect the data required by local police for registration via OCR, fill up the form to send those data,…

Hello Marco,

That's a great way of using accessibility tools & automation.

To solve this pain point - one of our friend has created PlusGuests.

http://plusguests.com/

Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

#583

Post by anoncoward111 »

tail_risk wrote: post #533

SO was complaining that I never text her while at work. Wrote a twilio app to pull random sentimental quotes from rumi and others, fit it into a personalised looking message spelling mistakes included )"thinking of you" etc.), and send it to her at random times of the day from my number. Weird thing is when I mentioned it was automated, she didn't believe me, so we kept it going till she broke up with me eventually.

Affection as a service. Automation in 2018 is looking grimmer and grimmer :)

Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

#584

Post by ocdtrekkie »

marcol1n0 wrote: post #544

My mum did run a B&B, in Italy, on the sea. Me and my sister do live in different cities. She was quite old, but did not want any help from strangers. She did refuse to use a computer keyboard, since she hated informatization, and her sight was short. So I did automate a system for her to scan the guests documents, detect the data required by local police for registration via OCR, fill up the form to send those data,…

I think people underestimate the power of IoT and automation to make independent living possible much longer. I recently installed the basics of my home automation system at my grandma's. Her keeping her thermostat set reasonably was an issue, and I've got the smoke detector on the system as well.

One of the things I'd like to add is the ability to detect natural gas: She doesn't have a lot of gas appliances, but she has no sense of smell, so the usual warning sign for natural gas she'd never notice.

Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

#585

Post by Operyl »

desaiguddu wrote: post #582
marcol1n0 wrote: post #544

My mum did run a B&B, in Italy, on the sea. Me and my sister do live in different cities. She was quite old, but did not want any help from strangers. She did refuse to use a computer keyboard, since she hated informatization, and her sight was short. So I did automate a system for her to scan the guests documents, detect the data required by local police for registration via OCR, fill up the form to send those data,…

Hello Marco, That's a great way of using accessibility tools & automation. To solve this pain point - one of our friend has created PlusGuests. http://plusguests.com/

Uh .. if I read the comment correctly, Marco's relative has passed away.

Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

#586

Post by navinsylvester »

aws_ls wrote: post #415
elvisds wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend is getting such a system to production for Indian recipes with Mechnical Chef [1] The demo looks incredibly cool [2] [1] http://www.mechanicalchef.com/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBB0ZaN1paE

Your friend is a genius! Any idea, how much is it going to cost? And will they plan to sell it in India?

It costs around 25k INR which would be around 370 dollars. Here is the source - https://www.thebetterindia.com/147371/bengaluru-mechanical-c....

Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

#587

Post by 0xfeba »

vajenetehais wrote: post #448

We (with the wife) automated menu for the week and the shopping list. A database store all recipes (ingredients, time taken...) and the menu composer chose semi-randomly* into the list. * : Menu composer takes into account : - in season vegetables, - number of reutilisation of the ingredient, - number of reutilisation of the meal, - expiration of the ingredients (vegetables can expire rather quickly) - various parame…

> It's really a relief. No need to decide what to cook after work : it's already decided, and you know you have the right ingredients. Time spend for the shopping is very small.

Nice. I'm using Google Keep for now, and there's probably a much better solution already -- but what I really want is a way to organize my shopping list the way the grocery store is organized so I can zip through it.

Ideally, this would require some collaboration with the store to get the exact layout. But a generic (vegetables first, breads 2nd, canned goods 3rd, ..., milk & dairy last. would also help tremendously.

Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

#589

Post by desaiguddu »

desaiguddu wrote: post #582
marcol1n0 wrote: post #544

My mum did run a B&B, in Italy, on the sea. Me and my sister do live in different cities. She was quite old, but did not want any help from strangers. She did refuse to use a computer keyboard, since she hated informatization, and her sight was short. So I did automate a system for her to scan the guests documents, detect the data required by local police for registration via OCR, fill up the form to send those data,…

Hello Marco, That's a great way of using accessibility tools & automation. To solve this pain point - one of our friend has created PlusGuests. http://plusguests.com/

My apologies for not reading your message entirely. May her soul rest in peace.

Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

#590

Post by desaiguddu »

Operyl wrote: post #585
desaiguddu wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello Marco, That's a great way of using accessibility tools & automation. To solve this pain point - one of our friend has created PlusGuests. http://plusguests.com/

Uh .. if I read the comment correctly, Marco's relative has passed away.

Really sorry, I didn't read the message entirely.
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