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Writing

  1. Turning my Metroboard into a smart light

    I got a Metroboard as a gift and mounted it on my wall, where I can't reach its buttons. I added an MQTT bridge to its firmware so Home Assistant can control it like the rest of my lights.

  2. Parchment devlog · Part 5

    Where Parchment is today

    Parchment is in closed alpha with a small group of testers. Here's what's working so far, and what I want to finish before opening up a beta.

  3. Parchment devlog · Part 4

    How Barrelman spun out of Parchment

    The APIs I depended on couldn't do a lot of what I wanted, so I started building my own backend for search, routing and map tiles. It ended up becoming a separate product with its own business model.

  4. Parchment devlog · Part 3

    Making map providers swappable

    Parchment's code used to reference every map service by name, which made changing anything painful. I borrowed the way Home Assistant handles devices, and now switching providers doesn't mean rewriting features.

  5. Parchment devlog · Part 2

    How Parchment started on free public APIs

    The first version of Parchment was a Vue app wired up to free, open source map services. That worked well for a while, until rate limits, mismatched data formats and outages started getting in the way.

  6. Parchment devlog · Part 1

    Why I'm building my own maps app

    I've spent most of my spare time since 2023 building Parchment, a maps app for people who walk, bike and take transit. Here's why I started it and what I want it to become.