When I was getting ready to take paternity leave I figured I'd either a) explore "hardware", or b) take a stab at learning mobile development. In the end I sta

When I was getting ready to take paternity leave I figured I'd either a) explore "hardware", or b) take a stab at learning mobile development. In the end I started playing with Arduinos. After a very short while I got a little addicted, but switched to using ESP8266 devices - because having onboard wifi made the hardware so much more useful. I've built, experimented with, and torn down a hell of a lot of projects in the three years since. But my absolute favourite project is nothing more than an LCD screen which shows me the next tram-departures from the local stop: https://steve.fi/hardware/helsinki-tram-times/ https://steve.fi/hardware/helsinki-tram-times/ That project was hacked up in an hour or two, but later made much more "producty" - being configurable with a web-browser, and being installed in a 3d-printed case I paid somebody to make for me. Over time I've added little hacks, so now it alternates between showing "$HOUR $DATE" and "$HOUR $TEMPERATURE" in the top-line. Because my wife would often ask me "Is it cold outside?" I've done more impressive things; such buying a random radio-based temperature/humidity sensor, then having to sniff for the packets, decode the bitstream, and inject the temp/humidity into an MQ queue. But for sheer practicality, and sheer usefulness, the always-on clock and tram display has been worth it.