SF Muni LED Sign at Home with Raspberry Pi | Hacker News Reader

SF Muni LED Sign at Home with Raspberry Pi

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77 pointssutro19 comments

Somewhat related, the recently launched Bay Area Bike Share system has a not-too-well-publicized API at http://bayareabikeshare.com/stations/json

Re. the implementation of weather prediction: the api that powers the dark sky iphone app is free for >1000 requests a day: https://developer.forecast.io/ -in sf this kind of data is doubly useful too (weather that changes quickly)

You meant to say "free for < 1000 requests a day"

Next step is to go down to the Embarcadero station and replace your working sign with the broken ones :).

That sign alone is pretty neat. I could put build health and statistics on it. Hmm..

The project is very cool. But for the life of me, I don't understand the "taking my phone out and checking is too inconvenient/time consuming" mentality. I stopped wearing a wristwatch, b/c I could just look at my phone, heck, I've shed as much stuff as possible since it can all go on the phone. Then out comes the pebble, and other "smart" watches. Seriously, I just don't get it. Isn't there a point beyond which such things just become frivolous?

I wear a watch when I'm on a motorcycle or have a client meeting - - then I can see where my day is at without digging in my pocket. But yeah, signs like this just don't make sense to me.

I have a desire for minimalism above all.

I bet if you a/b tested this sign vs a smartphone app, people using the sign would miss fewer buses.

If you want to know when the next train is with the app:

1. Where's my phone? It's not in my pocket, so maybe I left it on the table over there. Ugh, but I'm sitting down comfortably with a blanket and a book.

2. Fine, I'll stand up and walk over to get my phone.

3. Hrm, my phone isn't on the table. Maybe the kitchen?

4. Walk to the kitchen.

5. Good, here's my phone.

6. Unlock phone.

7. Unlock phone, this time with the right unlock key.

8. Scroll to find app.

9. Tap to launch it.

10. Read data.

11. Wait, is that up-to-date?

12. Tap to reload data from server.

13. Wait for data to reload from server.

14. Read data.

With this sign:

1. Turn head to the left.

2. Read data.

It's all about making it incredibly simple to do the task. Whenever someone posts a "Show HN" here, there's a dozen people complaining they can't try out the site without signing up, so they bounce. Yes, giving a way to try out a site with a guest account is frivolous -- just sign up, dammit! -- but it works better. And so does this sign: the data is just there for you to read.

I use "Muni Alerts," which is always synced and has alarms that can be set for particular lines approaching within arbitrary time frames. Works great.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.neces

You wouldn't happen to be a marketer for Spishak, would you? :-P

The very existence of Android widgets proves that people want a quicker way than opening an app to access a small subset of things. This is sort of like a widget except it goes on your wall, which makes it even faster.

I was keen to do something similar, but there's no tracker on the Phoenix Light Rail.

I am not from/in Phoenix so I don't know... but isn't this what you're looking for? http://www.valleymetro.org/nextride

  The NextRide electronic service provides quick access to
  next bus and train schedule information.  All you need is
  a phone or access to the Internet, your route number and
  your STOP# (located at every bus stop and light rail
  station).
  
  Valley Metro bus and train vehicles are equipped with GPS
  technology allowing you to access real-time scheduled
  arrival times.
  
  ...
 
  1-15 minutes before the scheduled arrival time, real-time
  departure times are supplied... 16-90 minutes in advance,
  scheduled times are supplied.

Thank you!

Before making the comment I searched around but failed to turn up that info. I knew that the bus stops all have those STOP#'s but had never spotted one for the light rail.

Tested this out on my 2 rides on the light rail yesterday and it became clear that the times on the web site aren't updated live. They appear to only ever return the scheduled time, not how the train is actually running :(

Cool! A sign guaranteed to be wrong 24/7!!

Does it announce the line letter twice when the train is four cars long?

So he's using the muni gem[1], which uses the nextmuni/nextbus api. To my knowledge, NextBus is unaware of the length of trains. The announcements in subway stations here are sourced from the Automatic Train Control (ATC) system present in the subway. If you're in a subway station, it's the screen sometimes next to the nextmuni screen -- the one with the terrible mspaint graphical style showing the length of the ATC system.

[1] https://github.com/jeffremer/muni

Neat!

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