A Barcode Driven Kitchen and Grocery List?

Posted by Cliff on Sunday December 12, 2004 @02:05AM from the digital-assistance-for-common-tasks dept.

Crazy Brian asks: "I have envisioned, for some time now, having a 3Com Audrey with a barcode scanner in my kitchen, where I can scan in items as I put them away, then scan them again as I use them. Barcode information would be stored on my MySQL server, and an inventory would be updated. I could then generate a shopping list, or link it to a database of recipes, to find out what I can have for dinner tonight. The closest thing I have found is the ShopWizard from Symbol, which only runs under Windows. Is there anything out there for Linux? I hope it can use the upcdatabase to find unknown barcodes. Is there any group interest in creating something like this, assuming nothing already exists?" Icepick's Trashbin is a simple application built on this concept, but wouldn't knowing exactly what is in your cabinets and having a ready-made grocery list be a useful feature for any kitchen?

2 of 105 comments (clear)

MySQL, huh? by Safety+Cap · 2004-12-12 02:37 · Score: 0, Troll

So you aren't planning on normalizing the data or using referential integrity? Where are you going to do that, in the application layer?
My hat's off you, sir, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

--
Yeah, right.
The Agribusiness Diet by sakusha · 2004-12-12 03:11 · Score: 1, Troll

This is a recipe for eating only prepackaged foods produced by the Agribusiness industry. Maybe you should just skip all the trouble and take food pills.

I try to purchase food that does NOT have standardized corporate barcodes on it. My local butcher allows me to select cuts from a display case, he weighs it and puts a pricetag on it. I put vegetables in a plastic bag, and they get weighed at the checkout. I can buy pasta in bulk. I cook it myself from recipies I've developed, instead of reading the instructions on a label.