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Dnguyentoday at 4:53 AM1 replyview on HN

This is a preview to show HN? I made an app that help me keep track of my home inventory. I try to keep it as simple as possible so I can stick to the process. The app keeps track of containers and items. Just like a file system, containers are folders and items are files. Of course you can have containers within a container. For example, my house has a garage. In it I have a rack of 5 rows by 7 columns of 27 gallon bins (https://www.tameru.app/tote-rack-planner). One bin has my power tools such as drills, router, bits, etc. To inventory a bin, I either scan the barcode of the item if it has one. Ninety nine percent of the time the result will fill in the title, description, and picture. If there's no barcode, then taking a picture and AI will give a pretty good title and description. There are other attributes you can have, but just a title and description from the scan is all that is needed. Once the items are in the system, I can search with keywords based on the title, description, notes, etc. If the same items are spread across multiple locations, they will show up in the result. Selecting one will show me the breadcrumb to the location: Garage->Tote Rack->Row4Col2->Corded Drill. I can select certain containers or items to share with different groups. My siblings can see my mitre saw, my friends can see my camping laterns. The app has a check out/check in mechanism. It keeps a historical track of who checked out, when, how many, and when they intend to return the items. Similarly, when checking in items, who, when, quantity, and condition returned. The history report is similar to the dot system in the article. I can get a list of what I haven't used more than, say two years, and consider selling or donating. The side effect is now I know what I have so I'm less likely to buy duplicates. There are many other features, but I'll have to wait for a show HN when my app is approved in the stores. I just want to share how I organize and declutter. Hopefully it resonates with others, like this dot system.


Replies

tim-fantoday at 5:17 AM

Hey me too, I also have a DIY inventory system, maybe yours is more developed. But I also had the concept of items for n arbitrarily nested containers.

I also track historical movements to see which items are never used.

Recently I've moved towards everything being stored in numbered bags, which are hung in order on a line for O(N) retrieval. For storage it tells you which bag to put it in, for retrieval it tells you where it is.

I'm thinking more and more the optimal system will have a physical as well as digital component.

Also, I feel this system would be great for shared workshops at work places and maker spaces etc. I was just rummaging through our lab at work today, there's so many parts in the lab no one would know about, if it was inventorised with a good integrated (AI?) search function the equipment could be much more useful/available.

https://github.com/tim-fan/hordor

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