Hi HN, I’m Simon. I spent ten years building science museum exhibits and fourteen in software, and now I make IDX in a one-person workshop in London.
I built IDX because most of the data I care about lives behind a screen, and I wanted something at the edge of my vision that tells me one thing without demanding attention. A needle you notice on the way past, not a notification.
The Hacker News Hotness mode polls the HN API every five minutes and shows the #1 story score as a percentage of a configurable maximum, 500 by default. So it’s a slow needle, not a live one, which is rather the point.
On price, since someone will ask: £179, or £219 for the stainless steel version, Phase. The parts aren’t expensive, but for that price, you get a complete, flashed, tested, small-batch unit which works out the box. If you’d rather build your own, I’d encourage it. The ESPHome config is on GitHub under Apache 2.0.
I’d especially like feedback on the modes. What would you actually put on a needle?
Why only the 1st one? Sometimes #1 and #2 have a lot of upvotes dor a related event.
Also, the 1st one may be a recent one that has like 50 upvotes and increasing fast.
Hi HN, I’m Simon. I spent ten years building science museum exhibits and fourteen in software, and now I make IDX in a one-person workshop in London.
I built IDX because most of the data I care about lives behind a screen, and I wanted something at the edge of my vision that tells me one thing without demanding attention. A needle you notice on the way past, not a notification.
The Hacker News Hotness mode polls the HN API every five minutes and shows the #1 story score as a percentage of a configurable maximum, 500 by default. So it’s a slow needle, not a live one, which is rather the point.
On price, since someone will ask: £179, or £219 for the stainless steel version, Phase. The parts aren’t expensive, but for that price, you get a complete, flashed, tested, small-batch unit which works out the box. If you’d rather build your own, I’d encourage it. The ESPHome config is on GitHub under Apache 2.0.
I’d especially like feedback on the modes. What would you actually put on a needle?
See it in action here: https://youtube.com/shorts/H6qlDd338Ww