Comment by lovehashbrowns

6 months ago

Hey!!

You can get everything I've got here: https://github.com/gerardocardenasgomez/printed-tasks

For my setup, I have a couple of different components. I have a very mediocre and super vibe coded HTTP server running on my Arduino which is connected to the receipt printer. It just has /print and /barcode endpoints. I'd like to improve on this by using an ESP32 instead of my Arduino so I can get MicroPython instead of C++. The Arduino is connected via serial to the receipt printer with this: NOYITO TTL to RS232 Module.

I then have a Python script which will send requests to the /print and /barcode endpoint to actually print out the tasks, and it hooks into Supabase to get the task into a DB and Google's AI Studio to also print a little encouraging message. Both should fit in their free tier for this kind of project.

And then I have a small API written in Typescript which hooks up to Supabase and marks a task complete when my iOS shortcut sends it a message.

The whole workflow for me is: Print receipt with the Python script, mark it complete with an iOS Shortcut. I have a whiteboard for the receipts themselves and magnets to stick them on there. Get fairly strong magnets because the ones I got start to lose their hold at the end of the day once I've got a number of tickets stacked up.

Honestly the barcode part is the key IMO. It makes completing a task so fun and rewarding. If you / your family has iPhones you can create an iOS Shortcut that will scan the task when you complete it. I was also going to go with a usb barcode scanner because that sounds really satisfying too! For this you might need a dedicated machine hooked up to the usb barcode scanner because they typically act as a keyboard and just type in whatever they scan, so you'll need a script running constantly that's just waiting for input.

I'm not too familiar with Homeassistant and it looks like donetick would work better for you as well than most of the stuff I've got but I'd be happy to help with anything if you'd like. My contact info is in the GitHub where I have the printed-tasks code.

Lastly, I've been using this manual for the ESC/POS stuff: https://pos-x.com/download/escpos-programming-manual/ Just in case you end up wanting to manually print yours. There are some libraries already that do this, but I can't use most of them because of the Arduino situation.