Tracking Moving Boxes with Twilio and Clarify.io | Hacker News Reader

Tracking Moving Boxes with Twilio and Clarify.io

twilio.com

39 pointscaseysoftware10 comments

@grhmc -- that's really cool. I wish I'd had something like this a number of times. "Now, which one of the 10 boxes labeled "kitchen" has the peeler in it?" :-)

Thank you! Yeah, it was pretty easy to build and use. A real joy. Yesterday, I was hunting for my vertical mouse and trackball. Sure enough, box #2 :)

Author of the project here. Happy to answer any questions.

I know it's fun to hack things together but wouldn't a smartphone with evernote be a better solution? You can use phone's speech to text feature and access your list anywhere online or offline.

Possibly, but:

1. I found the phone more inclined to stop listening, but maybe you know a better way?

2. It was really nice to be able to tell my father in law "just call this number and say the names of things as you go" when he was helping.

Great point, though.

Maybe I am missing something, why not just write the items on the box instead of the number?

Ever moved and thought "Damn, where did I put <one little thing that you just tossed into a box because you had a little bit of space left...>"? Instead of writing every little thing (which could be dozens, or a hundred small ones!) you can just say what it is as you place it in. Less work, less remembering when you're done loading up a box. Don't have to sit and read 30 boxes to find the right one -- just have to find the right number.

I like numbered boxes, but I still tend to put a word or two on them. If you have it in your hand reading it is always faster than pulling out your phone.

The lookup is great if you have a pile of boxes and want to find something. In place of a lookup app I used a Google doc spreadsheet. I could search it for "silverware" and see what box it was. As much as I love to code, sometimes it is nice not to.

Yep, so we took the same notes on the outside of the box that I used to. I would still have several "kitchen -- dishes" boxes etc. It made it easy to find the obvious stuff, and easy to find the smaller stuff, without having to take meticulous notes after packing the box.

Both storing an item and finding one is O(n) with this approach.

With audio + search, storing is O(n) (but a much smaller constant factor of talking vs writing), and lookup is O(1)! :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com