Show HN: Popco.bot – a smart microwave popcorn timer

It was built in a single day of running across the street between coding in a coffee shop, and testing the product on the microwave in seven-eleven.

It is actually just a mobile-first (mobile-only?) single page web app.

Built using no JS framework, has no build stage, or server side code. Uses Bootstrap for templating, and a lot of hacky vanilla JS code to quickly create this MVP.

We use the Web Audio JS API to listen for pops using device's microphone. The pop detection logic is as follows: if the current microphone sample volume is 10 times higher than the average of the last 6 samples of volume, it is a pop.

The logic on when to stop the microwave is as follows: first wait for 5 pops with less than 1 second in between them. We call this the "peak popping stage". Then we wait for either 3 pops with longer than 1.5 seconds in between. or 3 seconds without a single pop. We fine tuned the parameters with a lot of testing.

Hope this helps people avoid burnt or unpopped popcorn, and enjoy perfect microwaved popcorn every time.