zciwor's comments

zciwor | 10 months ago | on: Ask HN: What are you working on? (April 2025)

A little free library style box, but not free and not a library (https://thingio.dev)

I've got an LTE module connected to a solenoid lock. The module listens for a "checkout complete" callback from a Stripe payment link which will unlock the solenoid. There's also some weight sensing involved to track the current product inventory inside the cabinet.

I built this for a family friend who does a lot of wellness outreach around combating food deserts by introducing small scale farming to local schools.

As a result of their community bee hives, they have a bunch of excess honey. So, I thought I’d build them this little honey vending cabinet for their neighborhood.

I've expanded the service a bit to be more product agnostic, maybe someone else can find a use for it.

zciwor | 1 year ago | on: Ask HN: What are you working on? (February 2025)

I'm working on cataloging open source hardware designs.

When I'm starting a new hardware design, I find myself pulling up familiar boards (like Adafruit or Sparkfun's dev boards) as often as the chip's application note. I sometimes prefer a full reference project so I can get useful context like which voltage regulator they used or how the USB port is connected.

But, it's kind of an awkward process because I'll have to download the design files from Github and open it in the native CAD software (Eagle, for example).

I've been toying with how to solve this. I made a script to crawl Github for open hardware designs, then generate a schematic and interactive BOM for each design. Now, hopefully, you can search for "ESP32"[1] or "WiFi"[2] or "Bluetooth"[3] and get a number of designs to view in browser.

[1] https://www.openappnote.dev/tags/esp32/1 [2] https://www.openappnote.dev/tags/wifi/1 [3] https://www.openappnote.dev/tags/bluetooth/1

zciwor | 2 years ago | on: Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (March 2024)

- Location: Chicago, IL - Remote: Yes or Hybrid

- Specialty: IoT Software

- Technologies: Typescript, NodeJS, React, Python, React Native, AWS, Zephyr RTOS, Bluetooth Low Energy, MongoDB, PCB Design, 3D Design, ESP32, Cellular IoT, NodeJS, Arduino

- Email: [email protected]

- Website: https://www.ubiqueiot.com

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-pietrowicz-8110b17a/

I consider myself a truly full-stack IoT engineer. My experience spans from hardware design all the way to the cloud infrastructure to support it. Projects usually involve low power WiFi, Cellular, or Bluetooth connected devices.

zciwor | 2 years ago | on: Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (January 2024)

- Location: Chicago, IL

- Remote: Yes or Hybrid

- Specialty: IoT Software

- Technologies: Typescript, React, Python, React Native, AWS, Zephyr RTOS, Bluetooth Low Energy, MongoDB, PCB Design (KiCAD), 3D Design (OnShape), ESP32, Cellular IoT, NodeJS, Arduino

- Email: [email protected]

- Website: ubiqueiot.com

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-pietrowicz-8110b17a/

I consider myself a truly full-stack IoT engineer. My experience spans from hardware design all the way to the cloud infrastructure to support it. Projects usually involve low power WiFi or Bluetooth connected devices.

zciwor | 2 years ago | on: Ask HN: Show me your half baked project

https://tabbot.app

I hated having to open an excel spreadsheet after dinner with friends. Snap a picture of a receipt, send them the URL, and let them claim what they ordered.

OCR and ML is finally good enough to reliably itemize a receipt, even with variable templates and layouts.

zciwor | 2 years ago | on: Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?

I'm a credit card point junkie so I always volunteer to pay the bill at dinner or drinks. But, if everyone doesn't get roughly the same thing, it becomes a massive headache. I got fed up with having to manually tally up what everyone ordered and then hunting them down individually to get paid back.

Surprisingly, I haven't found a good tool that addresses this, so I spun up my own. I didn't want to force my friends to download another app just so I can get paid back so I tried to make it mostly SMS based.

You text a picture of the receipt to my Twilio phone number. It triggers a serverless function that runs AWS Textract to itemize the receipt, then stores it in a database. Twilio responds with the unique URL for the receipt and I can text that out to my friends so they can claim their own damn items.

Win win, I get the points AND I finally get paid back.

zciwor | 3 years ago | on: Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

My sister works as a veterinarian and is experiencing some serious burnout from her current practice (a subsidiary of a larger corporation).

I guess it's pretty common practice for corporations or private equity to snatch up smaller independent practices and then run them like a sweat shop. Her current CEO's resume is a list of Starbucks, Walmart, and a few other corporate roles that are totally unrelated to the medical industry.

We're tinkering with a platform that can somehow disrupt this cycle and add some transparency to the practice structure for the would-be employee.

The current form is kind of a niche Glassdoor, or we've been thinking of it as the "online dating between veterinarians & practices." Still playing with the concept.

Anyone have any thoughts on how to take out these massive PE firms that are plaguing the Vet Med industry?

Here's some more info on the problem: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/06/...

zciwor | 4 years ago | on: Ask HN: Who wants to collaborate?

I'm working on a repository of open source hardware designs over at postdrc.com.

I always like to take a pulse check on which components and configurations other people are using for different hardware functional blocks (think 3v linear regulator, logic level shifter, etc.).

Taking inspiration from dribbble and tailwindcomponents applied to open source electronics.

Let me know if you're interested in taking it for a test drive or helping with development. Technology stack is: Nextjs frontend, Strapi backend, AWS tools.

zciwor | 4 years ago | on: Show HN: A place for feedback on PCB designs

This is very helpful feedback, thanks! My mind goes to a few places when you talk about rich annotations on boards. Something like virtual sticky notes that are tied to specific areas on the design might be kind of fun. I hope to avoid just a list of screen grabs and paragraphs of text on the page.

zciwor | 4 years ago | on: Show HN: A place for feedback on PCB designs

That is a great thought on the high turn PCB production. You will have to keep me updated on your progress as you get up and running. Although, I'm not sure how to share contact info inside of HN? My Twitter is linked in the about page of the postDRC app if you're interested in connecting.

zciwor | 4 years ago | on: Show HN: A place for feedback on PCB designs

Thanks for your note, I agree. I think it would be great to have a much better viewer. I worry about relying on raw design files because the EDA space is so fragmented. Everyone is using different tools and they really don't make it easy to bounce between design suites. Maybe an embedded Gerber viewer would be better suited?

zciwor | 4 years ago | on: Show HN: A place for feedback on PCB designs

Going from a large corporate environment with strict design reviews, to the only hardware adept person on my small team I was really missing some sort of feedback on some of my (open source) designs. Reddit.com/r/printedcircuitboards roughly serves as this, but I thought it could be fun to spin up something purpose built.

The hope is to build a nice environment to get some fresh eyes on a new PCB design before you wait 2-3 weeks to get your PCBs built. The schematic gets shown in a PDF viewer and any uploaded Gerber files are converted to SVG and displayed for reference.

Long term, I would love to see if this can grow into a repository of open source hardware that could easily be indexed and referenced for inspiration.

Obviously, please don't post any IP protected designs here.

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