Gareth Cronin – Medium

Jun 11

Adding a rules language to Philips Hue lighting automation

In my last story, I explained how I’d wired together a JavaScript rules engine (JSON-Rules-Engine) and a client for the Philips Hue bridge RESTful API to handle complex rules for my home lighting setup. The Github repo is here. It’s running on a Raspberry Pi and working well, but as…

Philips Hue

5 min read

Jun 6

Automating Philips Hue with complex rules on a Raspberry Pi

I’ve been using Philips Hue lights and accessories for a few years. The system operates from a Hue bridge — a network attached unit that uses the Zigbee wireless protocol to communicate with the Hue bulbs, switches, and plugs. It’s very reliable and the app that communicates with the system…

Philips Hue

5 min read

Apr 29

SaaS prepper part two: backing up Evernote with a Raspberry Pi

In an earlier story, I talked about my fear of the collapse of SaaS products that I have come to rely on, and explained my offline backup solution for Flickr. The TL;DR is that I have a Raspberry Pi with an external hard drive connected. A couple of times a…

Evernote

6 min read

Mar 12

Building a Google Calendar add-on and publishing it in the Workspace marketplace

I work four days a week in a “real job” and I spend about a day a week solving problems that interest me with tiny software applications. I’ve been assembling a tool-kit to quickly build against architectural patterns that I find keep coming up in tiny apps. The technology I…

Google Workspace

9 min read

Building a Google Calendar add-on and publishing it in the marketplace

Feb 13

SaaS prepper: backing up my 12,000 Flickr photo collection with a Raspberry Pi

My wife and I have been using Flickr as our main photo album and photo storage site since 2007 and we have nearly 12,000 photos up there. Our phones back up to Google Photos, but we also have a Panasonic Lumix mirrorless camera, and Flickr is where we actually curate…

Raspberry Pi

7 min read

Dec 30, 2021

Bar Tool -Google Sheets as a back-end for master data

I like to make tiny SaaS apps to solve my own problems, and in the hope that it helps other people with the same problem. Lately that has meant building apps to help with my hobbies, and the latest one of my hobbies to help out is mixology. For this…

Google Sheets

6 min read

Nov 7, 2021

Converting units, vulgar fractions, and amateur mixology

This is another one of my “surely it can’t be that hard to…” stories (spoiler alert: yes it is). This time I’m dealing with the world of converting between different systems of measurement used for ingredients in cocktails. I like to make tiny SaaS apps to solve my own problems…

5 min read

$Converting units, vulgar fractions, and amateur mixology$

Oct 30, 2021

Building a flight-plan creator with Google Cloud Functions and Sheets

I’ve written about my adventures finding the best toolkits and stacks for solo development of tiny web apps. …

Cloud Functions

7 min read

Oct 13, 2021

AppSheet: a pleasant no-code surprise

Google acquired AppSheet in early 2020. I remember the announcement, but didn’t think much of it at the time. 18 months later, and it seems to me that low-code/no-code is such a “big thing” that it’s nudging out AI/ML in the tech press hype. In 2017 I co-founded a start-up…

Low Code

8 min read

Oct 8, 2021

Adding static API docs to my tiny API

In my first story in a series, I explained that I spend about a day a week solving problems that interest me with tiny software applications. I’ve been assembling a tool-kit to quickly build against architectural patterns that I find keep coming up in tiny apps. In a later story…

Api Development

2 min read