Hallway Dashboard

I'm going to pontificate for a moment. I really love technology. As a hobby, as a tool, as a cool thing. Tech and gadgets are fun. What I don't love are algorithms that are purposely designed to be addicting and are hard to put down. My phone, being a prime example of this. Those that know me know I spend very little time on my phone...but a fair amount on my computer.

That brings me to this project. I have a great program for tracking my spending and expenses but it's on my phone. Half the time when I pick up my phone for a purpose I end up cycling through the same five apps that are just time sucks. So I wanted something that will keep my spending and budgets front of mind without utilizing my phone, just have it available to see and look at whenever I come in or out of my apartment.

I made what is pictured below. It's a dashboard that pulls information from the web along with a couple notion databases to display the information. It uses a raspberry pi 4 as the brain and a cheap portable monitor from walmart for the display. The frame is just a picture frame from target. The notion database for expense tracking and to-do lists work in tandem with iOS shortcuts that I can access on any of my devices. This allows me to be intentional and think when I spend as I have to manually input the information and think about the purchase. The dashboard is primarily used on the pi in the front hallway but I can access it on any device on my local network

The example below does not utilize any of my personal information, just for example purposes.....


Design by: Trevor Frederiksen