A distinction worth making is between "self-hosting" (running docker-compose, Proxmox, etc.) and "local-first software" (applications that store data on your own machine with no cloud infrastructure required). The former is hard, the latter is just how desktop software worked before SaaS took over.
In small business software the shift has been nearly total. Tools aimed at craft makers, small food producers, etc. have almost universally migrated to monthly subscriptions. The practical result: you're paying $tens-$hundreds/month to track whether you have enough beeswax for your next candle batch, the price increases annually, and if the vendor folds you get 90 days to export your data (if you're lucky).
These users won't set up a homelab, but a desktop app that installs normally, stores data locally, works offline, and has a one-time price is achievable - I've been building one [1] and it's a reasonable middle ground between "trust us with your data forever" and "configure your own NAS."
[1] https://kitted.site (inventory and production management for small manufacturers)
I'm working on a local desktop app for inventory and production management: https://kitted.site
It includes bill of materials, purchase/production orders, "can I make n?", stock takes, multiple stock locations, and barcode scanning. It's aimed mainly at small business and makers for the time-being, but still allows multiple users to connect over the the local network.
Love seeing more local desktop apps in these threads, especially ones tackling local network sync like Kitted. I'm a solo dev also in the trenches building a local desktop tool right now, so I know how fun (and painful) those architecture choices can be. Would love to compare notes sometime if you're ever up to chat. Either way, the app looks super solid.
Thank you! Kitted doesn't actually try to tackle syncing, it just allows users to connect over the local network, serving the same web client as the electron app. All the data's stored in a single SQLite database, with uploaded images and other attachments beside it.
Sure, my email's in my profile, I'd be happy to chat.
Mithril.js, for both work and personal projects. There hasn't been a major release since I started using it ~4 years ago, which is lovely in the otherwise churning sea of frontend development.
We're working on "life support systems" for algae photobioreactors. This includes monitoring the health of the algae, monitoring and controlling the environment to optimise algae growth, providing feedback to users on growth and experiment progress, and uploading data to our own cloud.
We're more software than hardware, but without the hardware capability we wouldn't have been able to attempt it.
Previously we tried little "Singing Christmas Trees" as well [0], and while they were certainly nifty, we couldn't find the market for them at the price.
That's super cool! I worked last year on an algae bioreactor. I was growing chlorella in plastic bottles in my room, just for the heck of it. That year I also met some people working for a University of Edinburgh startup using algae to consume the tails from whiskey production. Honestly, I really hope that algaes see a wider adoption in consumer and business processes, because they're really fun and fascinating organisms.
Out of curiosity, are you looking for interns? I can work in the UK and the US. If you have contact information of some kind, I can send you my resume!
That sounds really interesting. I'm afraid we're not looking for interns immediately, but the next phase of the project will require more people and square-footage. My email's in my profile, let me know!
Which consisted of a black-cardboard-paper with a pattern on it connect-the-dots-style - and you would plug into each 'dot' a plastic pin, then it would light-up at you would see the pattern/design in full form?
-
Imagine your xmas trees as a grid of LEDs and they are pressable/de-pressable (toggle) and kids can draw out a pattern, then have the machine animate the pattern in certain ways... as it understands the intent of the drawing as being a car/tree/person/animal whatever...
We did look at the idea of letting people arbitrarily arrange a string of LEDs then somehow map the sub-models to the new positions (which LEDs are "left eye open", which are "mouth shape E", etc.), but we couldn't find an LED string we liked that was both cheap and individually-addressable.
Also on the drawing board was some sort of "tiles" of letters which would be be rearranged by the user and illuminated in a fixed grid, then have different messages light up like a wordsearch. It could also be used to make those "word clocks" that are out there, that spell out "it is half past four" for example.
I wanted a simple chat history and rudimentary web searches in the terminal, so I wrote my own [0] (bring your own OpenAI API key).
It was a very novel experience writing the API for the simple "tools" in plain English in the system prompt (e.g. to search the web, read a website), though I never managed to make GPT4 successfully use the "execute Javascript" one.
We're not out to compete directly with WLED, we think it's great.
We wanted more control over the subsections of the connected LED string than WLED provides with its "segments" feature. For example, the outline of the Mini Tree is made up of four separate sections (it is interrupted by the eyes and the star), but is one single model from the point of view of the firmware and the API.
Also, the firmware will be written in MicroPython for easier customisation. We wanted to add some environmental sensors and a real-time clock to a standalone controller for another project in the works, and it also makes customising the controller much more approachable for beginners. Of course, you can still upload your own C/C++ instead.
Our lighting effect sequencer will also connect to our controllers automatically to orchestrate effects across a number of LED strings in time to arbitrary audio.
If you don't need to customise the on-board capabilities of controllers or orchestrate effects, then WLED is an excellent choice.
We are working on adding E1.31, using ethernet over USB (CDC NCM). We don't have it finished yet, but we hope it will just be a firmware update once it is. Dmxsun (https://github.com/OpenLightingProject/rp2040-dmxsun) works like this and is RP2040 based, so it's certainly possible.
A distinction worth making is between "self-hosting" (running docker-compose, Proxmox, etc.) and "local-first software" (applications that store data on your own machine with no cloud infrastructure required). The former is hard, the latter is just how desktop software worked before SaaS took over.
In small business software the shift has been nearly total. Tools aimed at craft makers, small food producers, etc. have almost universally migrated to monthly subscriptions. The practical result: you're paying $tens-$hundreds/month to track whether you have enough beeswax for your next candle batch, the price increases annually, and if the vendor folds you get 90 days to export your data (if you're lucky).
These users won't set up a homelab, but a desktop app that installs normally, stores data locally, works offline, and has a one-time price is achievable - I've been building one [1] and it's a reasonable middle ground between "trust us with your data forever" and "configure your own NAS."
[1] https://kitted.site (inventory and production management for small manufacturers)