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I had the same idea as well! https://puzzleparlour.co.uk/

There are still a couple of bugs to iron out, but people seem to like the original Gravity Words game.

I agree about Obsidian Sync, I'm a happy user.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/@pixolighting

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.

[0] https://github.com/neon-fish/cass

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.

Thank you!

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.

Very interesting, guys. The peer-reviewing's a great idea.