[HN Gopher] The DeskThing: the perfect desk assistant
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The DeskThing: the perfect desk assistant
Author : ingve
Score : 78 points
Date : 2024-11-03 17:16 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| neals wrote:
| So what's a possible usecase for this?
| 0x457 wrote:
| Use case is - you have car thing that spotify bricked by not
| supporting it, and now it's doing something useful.
| mholm wrote:
| Just set this up a couple days ago. Pretty useful, but clearly
| very early immature. Excited to see it grow and become reliable
| and flexible.
| Dachande663 wrote:
| Is there a simple BOM for making something like this without a
| Car Thing. Would an arduino/rock chip with a tft touch screen
| work or does it warrant pi levels?
| opencl wrote:
| The actual Car Thing runs Linux on an Amlogic S905D2 (quad
| Cortex A53) with 512MB RAM/4GB flash and an 800x480 screen. So
| you could do something similar with pretty much any random
| cheap ARM SBC.
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| Right now you can get an Amazon Kindle Fire 10 HD for $75 - it
| has a screen ~3x the size of the CarThing. Spotify works out of
| the box on it. Same with Web Apps. You can put it in Developer
| Always On mode in about 10 seconds via the menus and it works
| great as a dashboard.
| derefr wrote:
| The computer is the easy part -- any 10-year-old Android phone
| would do the compute part, and the networking part, and the
| screen part; and would be easier to program; and would cost
| less than pretty much any SBC kit.
|
| The hard part (at a DIY level) is, honestly, the physical
| buttons and knob -- wired as an input device to the compute
| without hogging the device's (likely only) port -- and with
| good industrial design (no gross 3D-printed textures that
| easily get dirty from being touched a lot; no deep wraparound
| plastic bezel that prevents you from touching the corners of
| the display; dynamic-function side buttons thin enough to allow
| the screen to show the labels for them; etc.)
| mafuyu wrote:
| About page: https://deskthing.app/about
|
| Looks like a project to open up Spotify's discontinued Car Thing
| to homebrew apps.
|
| If the devs are reading this: the GitHub README and homepage both
| don't have a description of what the project is. I had to click
| around for a while until I found the about page.
| synalx wrote:
| Without knowing what Car Thing was, I read all 3 of those pages
| and still have no idea what this project is.
| edfletcher_t137 wrote:
| The utter lack of screenshots doesn't help either. I also
| read those pages and am also still unsure of what this is.
| weaksauce wrote:
| it is a opensource-crime to opensource something with a ui
| and not have a single screenshot of what the thing actually
| is.
| 65 wrote:
| I'm not sure how someone manages to make an entire project
| like this and provide absolutely zero pictures of it.
| Almost impressive how someone can just completely forget
| the most important thing to get people to understand what
| your project actually does.
| drdaeman wrote:
| Even knowing what it is, and having a Car Thing somewhere in
| a box in a closet, I still don't have any idea what this
| DeskThing thing is.
|
| Some Chromium shell with yet-another-appstore that can
| somehow show (or maybe control) Spotify, Discord and weather,
| with Trello and Audible planned is my best guess. I guess, a
| couple screenshots or photos would've done wonders in this
| regard.
|
| Either way, I fail to understand why I might prefer a
| separate low-power device to do something with the apps I can
| already see and control from desktop. But I'm glad someone
| found a use case for their Car Thing.
| Uehreka wrote:
| This is like the 20th Cool Thing that I've seen posted on HN
| that could be explained by a photo and yet the creators
| seemingly didn't even think to take one (despite building out a
| whole website and everything). How does this keep happening?
| zephyreon wrote:
| I have a CarThing and managed to get this working on it after
| several attempts and it is actually pretty good. If they revamp
| the website and README it really has the potential to take off.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| Since this is my first exposure to this application, I was hoping
| to get at least a single sentence explaining what it is.
| kingkongjaffa wrote:
| So since the repo is missing a bunch of screenshots and context
| here's a stab at it:
|
| This repo is software for a device called Car Thing, which was
| made by spotify.
|
| It's a tablet-like device to put in your car. This repo loads it
| with software useful to be used at your desk instead.
|
| It seems like at the end of this year Car Thing will no longer
| work.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Thing
|
| Here's a picture of car thing
|
| https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/Qj4rWZisMXRjY4vmn2BsFS.jpg
| rockbruno wrote:
| A mini description of this since the page doesn't explain it very
| well: The CarThing is basically a mini Linux device that runs a
| web app that lets you control your phone's Spotify from the
| hardware itself. It was designed to be attached to old cars that
| don't have dedicated media centers.
|
| Spotify discontinued it a while ago and subsequently open-sourced
| some of the bootloader and kernel code. Researchers then were
| able to tear it apart, and as a result you can now do whatever
| you want with it. DeskThing is a project that makes it easier for
| you to do so; it's basically an app store of custom web apps made
| by the community that you can upload back into the CarThing.
| mcswell wrote:
| Thank you! I don't know how many projects I've seen on github
| which sound like they might be interesting, but where there's
| no way to really understand what it does without installing it.
| If people want their widget to be used, they ought to provide a
| video or at least some screenshots that show it in action.
| rockbruno wrote:
| The instructions are also completely messed up, if you're
| using macOS you need to go into a Discord server to get the
| real instructions. If the owner is reading this, I suggest
| focusing on one thing at a time instead of trying to finish
| everything / all platforms at once :)
| riprod wrote:
| To be honest, the scope of this project has been blown out
| of proportion. I had no idea it would hit mainstream media
| so aggressively like this. We're right now working on an
| official Wiki that goes over the DeskThing and all the
| aspects of it - but I can only do so much while balancing
| my school and work at the same time.
|
| I appreciate the concern though
|
| - Solo DeskThing Developer
| 4b11b4 wrote:
| Just one visual for my eyes, that's all
| namero999 wrote:
| From the FAQ page of the Car Thing (the spotify device)
|
| "What should I do with the device? We recommend resetting your
| Car Thing to factory settings and safely disposing of your device
| following local electronic waste guidelines. Contact your state
| or local waste disposal department to determine how to dispose of
| or recycle Car Thing in accordance with applicable laws and
| regulations."
|
| That's sad. They should link to this project, or officially
| release kernel/drivers.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| They can't. They're legally washing their hands of the product.
| If they recommended anything else, they could be liable for
| defective products or for supporting a general purpose
| computing device, which comes with a plethora of other legal
| potholes (including export restrictions).
| Uehreka wrote:
| That sounds like one of those things rich people say when
| they don't want to do something and want people to be mad at
| "lawyers" or "government regulations" instead of them.
| Centigonal wrote:
| The website and repo don't have great visuals, but I found a
| video of this thing in action:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQVuGeoqyUc&t=415s
| khaki54 wrote:
| Haha pull request on the Readme and add this link!
| tobiasbischoff wrote:
| This needs a video and some photos of what the actual f is
| happening
| dbalatero wrote:
| I wish it would show me what the device is, and what it looks
| like, and what it can do for me.
| thebigspacefuck wrote:
| Is there a replacement for the CarThing so it will continue to
| work in my car?
| patrickhogan1 wrote:
| Please put a picture of what it is you are making on the front of
| the github page
| chilipepperhott wrote:
| Are there images of what it looks like anywhere?
| lolinder wrote:
| So many Open Source repos assume that you already know what the
| proprietary version is and don't bother to explain what they are,
| just how they relate to $other_thing. I got through the whole
| introduction without any sense for what this was and was hopeful
| when I saw a Features section that it'd finally explain itself...
| but no, all I know now is it can download apps (what kind of
| apps, and to what?), modify buttons to do "any function" (out of
| what set?), and integrate with discord and weather but not some
| other things (what does 'to be migrated' mean?).
|
| If you're writing a README like this, it's a good idea to
| remember that there are a bunch of people who may be interested
| in your tools because they're FOSS but would never have
| interacted with whatever proprietary thing you're comparing them
| to. Do us all a favor and give a two-sentence explanation for
| what you're building on its own terms.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I read it for about 3 minutes but I still have no idea what
| this does.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Can't help but feel that you're barking up a somewhat
| nonexistent tree here. This project is for interfacing with the
| deprecated Spotify CarThing. If you don't know about it, you're
| very likely not their target audience, so I think it's pretty
| fine if you don't get it. If you do know what the CarThing is,
| the readme intro covers what this project does pretty well.
|
| In similar vein, you wouldn't expect a Javascript library
| readme to start by explaining what Javascript is or what a
| software library is, but if you didn't know those things, you
| would feel equally lost.
| treflop wrote:
| A repo on GitHub linked from HN wouldn't need to explain JS.
| But it should explain CarThing.
|
| Idk. Even in Jira tickets, I write a short background section
| to bring everyone up to speed.
|
| I like when everyone gets a chance to be on the same page.
| __jonas wrote:
| The whole intro to the project and history lesson is on the
| website:
|
| https://deskthing.app/about
|
| which I think is completely fine, wouldn't want to have that in
| a repo README personally
| riprod wrote:
| Hi, deskthing developer here.
|
| I'mma be completely honest, I had no intentions of this blowing
| up like it did. The Readme has been in desperate need of a
| revision and documentation is all but nonexistent. Why? Because
| I'm just a college student who likes coding and figured I'd
| take on a fun little project. I'm not a company, an
| organization, and i have no idea what the crap I'm doing half
| the time! A formal wiki is in the works and will eventually be
| implemented and linked to across the ReadMes and websites.
|
| Thanks for understanding! Cheers
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> and i have no idea what the crap I 'm doing half the
| time!_
|
| Don't worry. Neither does anyone else. Everyone just gets
| better at faking it with time.
| TylerE wrote:
| Seems kinda like it does about 10% of what a Streamdeck does,
| minus the physical hardware. Of course, for most of those users
| having the hardware (16 or 32 key macro board with user-
| controllable displays behind the (clear) buttons. Basically it
| looks like a keyboard with LCD keys.
| whydoineedthis wrote:
| The info page says it's based on some spottify thing I never
| heard od or used. It would be nice if it said what it actually
| did.
| whydoineedthis wrote:
| Car Thing is a physical device that looks alike a 7" tablet with
| a giant knob/button sticking off the face. It originally only did
| Spotify, ow it can do other stuff I guess.
| BadHumans wrote:
| People here upset that someone's hobby repo isn't professionally
| copywritten is absurd.
| n0us wrote:
| A basic picture or even description of what the thing is is a
| low bar for "professional"
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(page generated 2024-11-03 23:01 UTC)