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Show HN: NextJS + Node.js library for location tracking of business assets

33 points by kdeorah 7y ago

kdeorah 7y ago
We built this app to dogfood our location tracking platform. Places visited, commutes taken, walks to lunches, drives to meetings … really the timeline of movement from place to place. In the end, we had built a number of useful backend libraries in NodeJS and frontend libraries in NextJS. Sharing that out to re-use and re-purpose.
- whycombagator 7y ago
  The README alone is excellent, well done
  - agraebe 7y ago
    came across this neat repo: https://github.com/matiassingers/awesome-readme https://github.com/matiassingers/awesome-readme. Great set of READMEs worth looking at when writing your own
tyingq 7y ago
Interesting from a tech perspective, but I would change "business assets" in the title with "employees" or "workforce". This is tracking people and their actions, not tracking "stuff".
- agraebe 7y ago
  good point, the workforce seems to be the main use case. especially, because it provides an expense report feature
- zorronimous 7y ago
  I thougt it sounded very professional since tracking employees could be illegal while assets are fair game.
- kdeorah 7y ago
  Does Uber track the ride or the driver? App users are carrying out work and the business wants to track work. Asset track and telematics are product categories used in the industry where work is on the move. This app belongs in the same bucket.
  - tyingq 7y ago
    Their own blog post says "workforce" instead of "business assets". http://hypertrack.com/blog/2019/09/09/open-sourcing-placeline-a-sample-app-to-track-the-movement-history-of-your-workforce/ http://hypertrack.com/blog/2019/09/09/open-sourcing-placelin...
akishinevsky 7y ago
This is a great example of how one can layer an application on top of HyperTrack location event streaming platform to do display useful data. Once you have integrated the mobile SDK and started generating location events, you can start creating applications just like this one to provide richer experiences.
- agraebe 7y ago
  do you provide any other opensource apps?
  - kdeorah 7y ago
    Yes look us up here: https://github.com/hypertrack https://github.com/hypertrack
omeada 7y ago
Interesting! Why would you use localtunnel as opposed to ngrok ?
- agraebe 7y ago
  there seem to be quite a few available. I also like telebit. btw, saw a comparison the other day: https://www.chenhuijing.com/blog/tunnelling-services-for-exposing-localhost-to-the-web/ https://www.chenhuijing.com/blog/tunnelling-services-for-exp...
- kdeorah 7y ago
  good question, main goal was to get the project up and running quickly. guess for the frontend there's less need for it. the backend project uses localtunnel to consume webhooks while testing locally. ngrok looks great!
thomas_raff 7y ago
Cool project. How would I use another map layer (don't have a google maps api key)? And why did you deploy to Heroku and not to AWS/GCP/Azure?
- kdeorah 7y ago
  Yes you could use MapTiler or Mapbox or a React component for any other map. Google is most popular and therefore added to sample. Heroku is the easiest to get up and running with. PaaS over raw store/compute when you are getting started.
thesanerguy 7y ago
Have you seen businesses, that want to track assets, move to smartphone based tracking instead of traditional GPS tracking? Any pros and cons?
- kdeorah 7y ago
  Smartphone is where the work app sits. Making the app location aware serves a diff need than vehicle connected telematics. The worlds converge a bit but tandem is more the norm than replacement.
hockeygeekgirl 7y ago
How does this compare to the technology typically used by public transportation companies so we can find out if our bus is late? Cheaper to implement? Easier to implement? Different features?

33 points by kdeorah 7y ago

We built this app to dogfood our location tracking platform. Places visited, commutes taken, walks to lunches, drives to meetings … really the timeline of movement from place to place. In the end, we had built a number of useful backend libraries in NodeJS and frontend libraries in NextJS. Sharing that out to re-use and re-purpose.

whycombagator 7y ago
The README alone is excellent, well done
- agraebe 7y ago
  came across this neat repo: https://github.com/matiassingers/awesome-readme https://github.com/matiassingers/awesome-readme. Great set of READMEs worth looking at when writing your own

tyingq 7y ago

Interesting from a tech perspective, but I would change "business assets" in the title with "employees" or "workforce". This is tracking people and their actions, not tracking "stuff".

agraebe 7y ago
good point, the workforce seems to be the main use case. especially, because it provides an expense report feature
zorronimous 7y ago
I thougt it sounded very professional since tracking employees could be illegal while assets are fair game.
kdeorah 7y ago
Does Uber track the ride or the driver? App users are carrying out work and the business wants to track work. Asset track and telematics are product categories used in the industry where work is on the move. This app belongs in the same bucket.
- tyingq 7y ago
  Their own blog post says "workforce" instead of "business assets". http://hypertrack.com/blog/2019/09/09/open-sourcing-placeline-a-sample-app-to-track-the-movement-history-of-your-workforce/ http://hypertrack.com/blog/2019/09/09/open-sourcing-placelin...

akishinevsky 7y ago

This is a great example of how one can layer an application on top of HyperTrack location event streaming platform to do display useful data. Once you have integrated the mobile SDK and started generating location events, you can start creating applications just like this one to provide richer experiences.

agraebe 7y ago
do you provide any other opensource apps?
- kdeorah 7y ago
  Yes look us up here: https://github.com/hypertrack https://github.com/hypertrack

omeada 7y ago

Interesting! Why would you use localtunnel as opposed to ngrok ?

agraebe 7y ago
there seem to be quite a few available. I also like telebit. btw, saw a comparison the other day: https://www.chenhuijing.com/blog/tunnelling-services-for-exposing-localhost-to-the-web/ https://www.chenhuijing.com/blog/tunnelling-services-for-exp...
kdeorah 7y ago
good question, main goal was to get the project up and running quickly. guess for the frontend there's less need for it. the backend project uses localtunnel to consume webhooks while testing locally. ngrok looks great!

thomas_raff 7y ago

Cool project. How would I use another map layer (don't have a google maps api key)? And why did you deploy to Heroku and not to AWS/GCP/Azure?

kdeorah 7y ago
Yes you could use MapTiler or Mapbox or a React component for any other map. Google is most popular and therefore added to sample. Heroku is the easiest to get up and running with. PaaS over raw store/compute when you are getting started.

thesanerguy 7y ago

Have you seen businesses, that want to track assets, move to smartphone based tracking instead of traditional GPS tracking? Any pros and cons?

kdeorah 7y ago
Smartphone is where the work app sits. Making the app location aware serves a diff need than vehicle connected telematics. The worlds converge a bit but tandem is more the norm than replacement.

hockeygeekgirl 7y ago

How does this compare to the technology typically used by public transportation companies so we can find out if our bus is late? Cheaper to implement? Easier to implement? Different features?