Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 200 posts

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#71

Post by radicalriddler »

schappim wrote: post #62

Example 1 (custom hardware). My wife and I run https://littlebird.com.au and ship 25K orders per year. We found that it was taking too long to fulfil each order using Australia Post. So I built our own custom WebUSB postage scales and label printer. Creating a consignment is now 1-click. This enabled us to take the fulfillment process down from 5 minutes to 5 seconds. Across 25K parcels this equals 11-months of work…

Damn, I attended one of your Raspberry Pi workshops in Mount Kuring-gai about 3 years ago.

Unless I'm completely mistaken, who knows.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#74

Post by schappim »

radicalriddler wrote: post #71
schappim wrote: post #62

Example 1 (custom hardware). My wife and I run https://littlebird.com.au and ship 25K orders per year. We found that it was taking too long to fulfil each order using Australia Post. So I built our own custom WebUSB postage scales and label printer. Creating a consignment is now 1-click. This enabled us to take the fulfillment process down from 5 minutes to 5 seconds. Across 25K parcels this equals 11-months of work…

Damn, I attended one of your Raspberry Pi workshops in Mount Kuring-gai about 3 years ago. Unless I'm completely mistaken, who knows.

Awesome, thanks for coming! We're now in Hornsby (needed a bigger factory/warehouse).

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#75

Post by buzzerbetrayed »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #44

Lots of home automation fun with Home Assistant ( https://www.home-assistant.io ) * Self-hosted security system that e-mails me when triggered. It arms when everyone disconnects from the wifi and disarms when anyone in the home reconnects to wifi. Totally passive. Also arms at night when the kitchen lights have been out for 5 minutes after a certain time and disarms when motion patterns that can only be someone wakin…

Wow that is really impressive. Home assistant is something I’ve been meaning to get in to for a while, but the amount of time it seems like it would take to set all that up and maintain it seems daunting. Sounds fun though!

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#76

Post by schappim »

barbs wrote: post #67
schappim wrote: post #62

Example 1 (custom hardware). My wife and I run https://littlebird.com.au and ship 25K orders per year. We found that it was taking too long to fulfil each order using Australia Post. So I built our own custom WebUSB postage scales and label printer. Creating a consignment is now 1-click. This enabled us to take the fulfillment process down from 5 minutes to 5 seconds. Across 25K parcels this equals 11-months of work…

Excellent! Love the name - Checkout Chick :). Perfectly suits the little bird brand as well!

Cheers! We were thinking of a rename because only Australians/NZers know what a "Checkout Chick" is. :-)

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#77

Post by disillusioned »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #15
kunalpowar1203 wrote: post #10

I've used Automate App ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.llamalab.a... ) to set my android phone to silent mode in office and loud at home based on the wifi ssid.

That Google/Android tracks everywhere I go, sends me an email at the end of the month about it, and still can't silent/remind when I get into proximity of a location bugs the shit out of me. That tracking that's so profitable for them is an afterthought when it comes to my own convenience.

I mean, Google Assistant absolutely supports location reminders. Just ask "remind me when I get to work" and it'll... mostly work. Sometimes it's a bit late, but it mostly works. For silent, I think that'd be more of a Tasker/Automate thing, like OP.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#78

Post by zakn »

Shopping for groceries. I made a website which lets my wife and I pick recipes and any "one off" items we need for the week. The code figures out which ingredients it should buy (preferring organic / sale items) and then calls the "APIs" of our local grocery store's website to make the purchase. We then just have to pick up the pre-packed groceries on our way home from work.

It costs $5 for the packing service, but it's worth it to avoid the burden of shopping. No more tedious math on which is the better deal. No getting lost trying to find avocado oil. And no lines. I wish I had done this years ago.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#79

Post by tomjuggler »

geocrasher wrote: post #13

My typing. In my work I tend to type a lot of the same things over and over again. So I automate that with AutoHotKey. Ctrl+Tab becomes RightAlt. Two words become entire paragraphs. Even simple things like "You're welcome" are just 'ywyw' or 'tyvm' becomes "Thank you very much". I know it sounds silly, but while trying to avoid RSI's, the less typing the better. I also use autohotkey to help me remember to Linux comm…

Are you using wsl because AutoHotkey doesn't work on Linux...

Back when I was on Windows I used to have ctrl-c, ctrl-v mapped to F1 and F2 keys (using AHK). Why they don't have dedicated keys I don't know

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#80

Post by yyhhsj0521 »

Retric wrote: post #4

There are plenty of other ways to do this, but... I have a CC specifically for reoccurring bills. It’s automatically paid off every month and just by looking at that one debit it’s easy to notice if something odd happens and then track down what changed. Plus by adding it all together I tend to trim what services I keep paying for.

Your bank has an API for that?
Post reply on HN