I was really frustrated with the lack of generic, inexpensive, "smart" buttons that can be used for personal data tracking. I wanted a solution to track personal events but I keep coming up disappointed.
I want to put sets of buttons in specific places to make it easy to track things as I'm doing them. Buttons by the stove to track meal prep time, coffee, morning mood, etc. Buttons by the fish tank to track how diligent I am with feeding and maintenance. Buttons in the bathroom to track personal care stuff. Stuff like that.
- flic is expensive (though their new offering looks to do more and cost less)
- Amazon Dash Buttons are discontinued and even then need to be "hacked" to achieve other use cases.
- Xiaomi buttons require their gateway
- Philips Hue Buttons same thing - need to buy their gateway
- bttn - only B2B sales at the moment and I think they require an ongoing subscription
- etc
Heck, I ordered a sample eGet button from Alibaba.com but the app was buggy and it never was able to connect to my wifi network.
I even connected with a developer who was selling software to rehab those disccontinued Dash Buttons but it didn't pan out.
I got so frustrated that I decided to build my own "virtual buttons" that run on old phones and tablets I have laying around the house.
My thinking is that lots of people have old phones/tablets that could be put to similar uses to track personal events.
(old iPhone6 taped to the bathroom mirror)
(My kid's morning routine Event Panel.)
(old iPhone5 taped to the fish tank. I am horrible at doing water changes!)
If you know of anyone who would like to try out my solution for their own tracking, please share this post.
If you'd like to set up your own Event Panels, ping me for help setting it up or check out this forum post for basic instructions.
All feedback is appreciated.
