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Grocy: web-based, self-hosted grocery and household management

grocy.info

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Re: Grocy: web-based, self-hosted grocery and household management

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For items like oil and flour or other staples, maybe the best option would be to track and learn how often you are buying those items and have it added to your list when the time is approaching. I think the key is the meal planning. The recipes need to bulk manage the inventories and list as meals are prepared and upcoming. The recipes would need to be cleaned up and normalized.

all shelves with scales all over them for each thing you use unmeasured

An idea I had was coasters for bars and restaurants. You could easily glue those to shelves.

Re: Grocy: web-based, self-hosted grocery and household management

#142
Thank you very much for creating this, whoever you are. I know others have raised issues with the data entry aspect but at least there is something to build on. More relevant for me is that I can now have something to study with regard to the database design, backend/frontend stuff. bravo!!

Re: Grocy: web-based, self-hosted grocery and household management

#143

I freaking applied for HN with this idea and was rejected.. years ago. Called “standard pantry”

What was your revenue model?

The idea was to effectively have a standard pantry subscription service to a very good library of ingredients and provide cooking instructions, recipes based on what you had on hand - as well as providing a dietary input to what you make on a regular basis.

Having a standard pantry which is filled with regular ingredients, but minimally packaged, marketed, etc... would result in a lower waste footprint for the environment to boot.

Further, I want to have single-use-plastics reduced as much as is possible. So, it was based on a more sustainable packaging model.

Re: Grocy: web-based, self-hosted grocery and household management

#144
I've known about this project for a while, but the coronavirus lockdown led me to install it. Unfortunately, the JavaScript-based UPC/EAN barcode scanning is unusable. Too slow, even on a 2018 Mac Pro, sometimes only scans a partial barcode, and asks for permission to access the camera for every scan. I've ordered a USB bar code scanner, I'll see if that makes it more usable.

I used to have a really neat device called the Hiku. It was essentially a WiFi-enabled hockey-puck sized scanner, with a microphone for voice recognition for items without bar codes, and a UPC database. Sadly they went out of business a few years ago but their app still works (not sure if new users can sign up for it), and is great for shared shopping, e.g. yesterday I was shopping and I could see my wife add items to the list in real time, as well as cross them out.

My main challenge is that I downsized to a much smaller apartment, and a lot of our dry groceries have to go in plastic bins that are shoved in dark corners, so it's hard to know what we have or don't have, leading to duplicated purchases and also wasted food when it expires.

One challenge is the absence of a good universal UPC/EAN database. I tried one with one item from the bin (a box of some obscure knock-offs of Meiji Chocorooms), and when the phone scanner finally managed to get the item right, the online DB identified it as a Disney Princess doll, so it seems UPC/EAN is so badly managed they can't even avoid duplicate codes.

Finally data entry of expiration dates is going to be too cumbersome. A better approach would be to have some sort of of statistical model that estimates the shelf life from the product descriptions, e.g. 2 years for canned goods. Less precise, but more manageable, it could show alerts like "check how much longer this can of tuna has left", and if still has some ways, you could enter the precise date only then.

Re: Grocy: web-based, self-hosted grocery and household management

#145
post #144

I've known about this project for a while, but the coronavirus lockdown led me to install it. Unfortunately, the JavaScript-based UPC/EAN barcode scanning is unusable. Too slow, even on a 2018 Mac Pro, sometimes only scans a partial barcode, and asks for permission to access the camera for every scan. I've ordered a USB bar code scanner, I'll see if that makes it more usable. I used to have a really neat device calle…

I have a workflow for books that is quite efficient, using the Mac app Delicious Library, a Microvision RoV Bluetooth scanner supported by the app (sadly discontined):

https://blog.majid.info/organizing-with-delicious-library/

Sadly I don't have anything that streamlined for groceries.

Re: Grocy: web-based, self-hosted grocery and household management

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The other big challenge I never resolved was how you'd account for e.g. using 1/4 cup of flour out of a bigger volume. Or taken to its extreme, cooking oil. How do you know how much your 'splash' is? You can't predict the remaining volume without a lot of fiddling to measure it and that defeats the purpose. Definitely. Or, even, just taking some snacks to another room, and later placing it back to an 'intelligent'…

My naive solution, assuming a sufficiently "smart" home, would be to have each shelf be an accurate scale. If it's sensitive enough, it should be able to detect the weight of what was consumed.

A shelf for each item?

Re: Grocy: web-based, self-hosted grocery and household management

#148
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely agree with everything you've said. I had dreamed of a Libib[1] for my kitchen, but knew I would have to do all the painful data adding and it was too much of a bother. The other big challenge I never resolved was how you'd account for e.g. using 1/4 cup of flour out of a bigger volume. Or taken to its extreme, cooking oil. How do you know how much your 'splash' is? You can't predict the remaining volume wi…

> The other big challenge I never resolved was how you'd account for e.g. using 1/4 cup of flour out of a bigger volume. Or taken to its extreme, cooking oil. How do you know how much your 'splash' is? You can't predict the remaining volume without a lot of fiddling to measure it and that defeats the purpose. Definitely. Or, even, just taking some snacks to another room, and later placing it back to an 'intelligent'…

[deleted]

Re: Grocy: web-based, self-hosted grocery and household management

#149
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely agree with everything you've said. I had dreamed of a Libib[1] for my kitchen, but knew I would have to do all the painful data adding and it was too much of a bother. The other big challenge I never resolved was how you'd account for e.g. using 1/4 cup of flour out of a bigger volume. Or taken to its extreme, cooking oil. How do you know how much your 'splash' is? You can't predict the remaining volume wi…

> The other big challenge I never resolved was how you'd account for e.g. using 1/4 cup of flour out of a bigger volume. Or taken to its extreme, cooking oil. How do you know how much your 'splash' is? You can't predict the remaining volume without a lot of fiddling to measure it and that defeats the purpose. Definitely. Or, even, just taking some snacks to another room, and later placing it back to an 'intelligent'…

What you are talking about is called taking inventory. Even if automated tracking is being performed, i.e., by scanning the boxes or containers when they are moved out and updating the quantity in the database, a periodic inventory audit is performed in the warehouse to reconcile the actual number of the product on the shelf with the one derived from reflecting any additions or subtractions of the product.

In the household setting, the most realistic system are we r would be to keep track of the addition (purchase/replenishment) ołl the containers/packages of each product and subtraction when the entire container is used-up and discarded. Obviously, this system would require maintaining at least one spare container for each product and reorder replacement when the remaining inventory count is 1 or whatever number of stock of a specific product one would want to maintain. Partial expenditures (splashes or table spoons of cooking oil, pinch of silt, a number of eggs from the pack, cups of sugar or flour from the container, a serving of cereal from box etc.) of the product from the container wouldn’t be tracked. The inventory would only be updated when the container/package has been fished up or purchased and added to the home inventory. For those items which one wishes not stock more than one container or packaging, a solution would be to label such containers, so that you can re-order the product (via Alexa or Google Assistant or Siri) when the remaining amount of the product is below certain level, depending on the product. I.e., you wouldn’t stock more than one container of milk or eggs. But when you got below half full, you would know to reorder. If certain products are used exclusively by the kids, they should learn to talk to Alexa or let parents know that they would soon run out of the product (they would learn if they want to have the product available). If one would follow this system of continuous replenishment, it might be unnecessary to keep the track of the available stock/inventory. But updating of the inventory database could be done automatically, using designated commands to the voice assists which invoke IFTT engine action sequence in which the product is ordered or added to the weekly order or shopping list and updated in the inventory database as being ordered. Further, the delivery of the orders could be automatically detected by the IFTT email analysis extension, but for accessing the order in the notification and updating the inventory of items delivered in a given order, one would need to write a bit of the code, for each of the suppliers, i.e., Amazon, Jet, Target, Chewy etc. The high turnover items with no reserve (fresh groceries) do not justify keeping track of their inventory, just remember to reorder them or add to the shopping list and complete the recurring task of doing grocery shopping, of which the voice assistants and personal devices could be reminding you about.

Re: Grocy: web-based, self-hosted grocery and household management

#150
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

all shelves with scales all over them for each thing you use unmeasured

An idea I had was coasters for bars and restaurants. You could easily glue those to shelves.

And what’s the point of these coasters?
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