Ok, so, I have ideas in my head, and they’re too big for me to realize. But here’s the general idea.
We place RFID tags and readers along a G-Scale train. These readers would send data to a computer. This computer controls not only the train, but also a vending machine. This computer ALSO connects to your cell phone. We build an app if we have to. But basically, you open your cell phone, and say “I want 3 bags of chips, and 2 cans of soda.”
Then, a train starts chugging along. It stops at designated places. The vending machine drops in your 3 bags of chips, and 2 sodas into the gondola cars in the back. Then upon registering that the weight has settled, it starts chugging along, and eventually gets to you.
Once it has registered that you’ve taken your cargo, it chugs back along to where it came from and waits for it’s next set of orders.
I’m thinking we can use a DCC+ controlled G scale train. Some RFID tags, an RFID reader, and like 6 gondola cars, where we install weight sensitive plates.
Thoughts?
I’d settle for a simple camera attached to the fridge and another in the pantry. Place it on a linear slider and give it control over the lighting. Then an open source APK and Rπ server with easy encryption keys allows me to peek in the fridge or pantry to see if something is present or not. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just a fifty fifty chance or better that checking the camera might show what I have or not.
Impossible fantasy because criminal stalkerware data miners would teabag the hell out of such an idea.
But the whole reason I want to do this is to have a cool train come to me, to impress guests.
I saw a similar concept where a resteraunt had a train serve your food. You order is taken by you on a tabet. A human cooks it in a kitchen. Then a train brings it to your table. It waits for you to grab your stuff, and then it pulls away.
Now I can’t dedicate a full time human chef to this, and innitially the original idea was beer…and others could adopt this idea for 12oz cans of beer, since beer and soda are the same size, but I figured the next best thing was vending machine sealed snacks, and soda.
But, to your end, why not just connect all that stuff to a cheap router, and then NOT connect that router to the internet? If the idea is just to check inventory from your sofa, you could connect to that wifi, which IS connected to your tech, but NOT connected to outside the house connections.