Work in progress
I built a wine rack
that knows what’s in it.
Every slot has a light and a lever. Photograph a label, stick the bottle in, and it works out where it went. Ask it later where something is and the slot lights up.
Mostly because I kept losing track, and a spreadsheet goes out of date the first time someone else opens a bottle.
The rack. A light and a lever in every slot. It lights the one you asked for, and notices if the bottle ends up somewhere else.
The app. What’s in the cellar and where it is.
How it goes
Bottles move about. It keeps up.
The trouble with tracking wine by hand is that you stop doing it. The lever under each slot means you don’t have to remember.
Take a picture of the label
It works out the producer, vintage, region, what’s in the blend, and roughly how it tastes: sweetness, body, tannin, acidity, oak.
A slot lights up
Ask it where to put something and it picks a free slot and lights it up. Put the bottle somewhere else and it’ll notice and ask.
It asks about it later
Take a bottle out and the light goes green. Drank it, or just moving it? Answer once. Put it back and it checks it’s the same one.
It picks up what you like
Rate things as you drink them and it gets a feel for your taste, which makes “would I like this?” a question it can have a decent go at.
Three ways to run it
Run it yourself, or don’t.
The rack talks to the software over an open protocol, so you can host the software yourself or I can do it for you.
Self-hosted
If you’ve already got a NAS.
- ✓The whole thing as one Docker image, on your hardware
- ✓Slot tracking, the lights, and the questions it asks
- ✓Works with Home Assistant over MQTT
- ✓Your data stays on your box
- –You type the wines in yourself. No label recognition
- –No support beyond me and whoever else turns up
No idea yet. Tell me what it’s worth.
Hosted
If you’d rather not think about it.
- ✓Everything in Hobby, and nothing to maintain
- ✓Photograph a label and it sorts out the details
- ✓Learns your taste from what you rate
- ✓Ask it about a bottle you haven’t bought yet
- ✓Share a cellar with the rest of the house, keep your own ratings
- ✓Hook an AI assistant up to your cellar
No idea yet. Tell me what it’s worth.
Venue
Restaurants, bars, cellar doors.
- ✓Everything in Hosted
- ✓A public wine list, straight from what’s actually in the rack
- ✓Lots of racks, lots of rooms, one cellar
- ✓Staff accounts
- ✓Actual support, from an actual person
Get in touch.
Sign up
Would you use this?
There’s one of these on the wall in my house in Brisbane. I’ve no idea whether anyone else wants one, which is what this page is for.
Do I have to buy the hardware off you?
Nope. The protocol between the rack and the software is open, so anything that speaks it works, including something you build yourself.
What if you give up on it?
The self-hosted version is the same software as the hosted one. If I wander off, the rack on your wall carries on working.
How big is it?
Sixteen slots to a module, chained together. The first one I built got cut down to nine so it would fit a rack I already had.
Does it need the internet?
Self-hosted, no, it all stays on your network. Hosted, the rack needs to reach the server, but it keeps its own state and catches up afterwards.