Selfhosted @lemmy.world cm0002 @lemmy.world 3w ago

I've massively improved my home organization with this free and open-source [Self-Hosted] tool [HomeBox]

www.xda-developers.com /improved-home-organization-with-free-open-source-tool/

16 comments

Maybe I'm too poor or too young (or both), but I know exactly where everything in my home is. And if I don't it's because I've misplaced it, and the program isn't going to help with that :(
- I have 800+ items in my home inventory list. Lots of different tools, household stuff, seasonal, and cooking stuff.
  
  I used to be able to keep track just by having a few containers, but then I started forgetting what container something was in.
  
  Now containers are labelled with a container name and list of what's in it, my inventory app (just a shopping list app) indicates the container name.
  
  Edit: You'd be surprised how much stuff you actually have until you start inventorying it. It's a tedious task.
- LOL me too my brother. However, one thing I do use is Grocy for pantry and other inventory. Homebox seems to be in that inventory genre of apps. I'm somewhat of a prepper, but 'prepping' was very common in my generation along with Victory Gardens. I don't do EOTW scenarios, but I do stock for social or political unrest and upheavals, weather related hazards or catastrophes, food shortages, etc. During the pandemic, I rarely wandered from my compound.
  
  I have a UPC scanner that I scan all groceries and food stuffs into Grocy, and when I use the item, I scan it out. I'm the only one who is authorized to use it which gripes my lady friend when she comes to visit. LOL So, when I am doing my monthly shopping, I can pull up the app and check against the inventory to see if I need to pick up a couple 50 lb sacks of rice that are on sale.
  
  I could see how Homebox would be useful in that you could take inventory of all your household items for perhaps insurance claims reasons. I take pictures of all such items along with their serial numbers and store them just for that purpose. I wonder if Homebox could import such data to securely store.
  
  Yup, that's my use case. I set it up in case of theft or loss. Now I just actually need to go around and put my valuable stuff into it...
  
  And also find my Dremel. I bought a mini cordless one that worked great, but it's so portable I have no idea where I left it!
- And if I don't it's because I've misplaced it, and the program isn't going to help with that :(
  
  In that case it will help you with where it was supposed to be
- Yeah one thing I find these kinds of tools good for is warranty tracking I'd something breaks and insurance claims if there's a fire or robbery or something.
- It's probably a bit of both, plus still functional memory.
Thanks for sharing this, I am currently looking into these and so far found Dumb Assets and also partially Warracker which seems to be super active in adding features, but so far is focused mainly on warranties.
Any suggestions for alternatives while we're at it?

I'm currently using Google Keep (don't judge) with special title format and gotta move out of there.
- I've been attempting to test shelf.nu . they have a docker container but not working for me after a bit of tinkering. What made me want to try shelfNU is they sell QR codes you can put on boxes and assign that as an entity and say these items are there so it's easy to find what's in what storage container.
  
  That's nice. I suppose you could do the same by printing a bunch of UUIDs on QR codes and add the UUIDs to the respective location in the system.
  
  What I'm doing is even easier. I use an X-Y coordinate system. I assign a letter to a storage unit, e.g. a Kallax is assigned "A". Then each bin horizontally is X and each bin vertically is Y in A:X:Y. Then fairly easily I can determine that the third bin on the second shelf is A:3:2. That's short enough to type in a search field. It's also easy enough to locate a shelf coming from A:X:Y. If the shelf has only one dimension, like a bunch of drawers, I use just one number. This system is fairly easy to learn and eliminates the need for physically tagging every bin or drawer. Doesn't work for unstructured storage, like boxes on the floor or other shameful things that we all have. 😄
  
  Homebox has this capability too, you can generate QR codes for assets and scan it later to identify whatever's inside.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventory_management_software
  
  Here's a good list

16 comments