[starik36]

> wasn't a "setup an forgot" device

It absolutely is. I have 4 RPi devices in the house actively doing work and I only touch them when I need to change a feature or something like that.

1. Front end to my 3D printer - RPi 2.

2. Magic Mirror - RPi 4.

3. Front end to my ancient HP LaserJet to make it wireless - RPi Zero W

4. Detector for Dryer finishing and sending me a text message - RPi Zero 2 W

These require no babysitting whatsoever.

[Rebelgecko]

All of my Pis have shat the bed after 3-5 years and had to be reimaged. I assume it's a combination of power outages + SD card lifetimes

[starik36]

My RPi 2 with the 3D printer has been operating with no problem since 2017 or something like that. The RPi Zero W with the HP LaserJet since around 2019.

Fingers crossed, it's been fantastic reliability.

[dgacmu]

How do you tell when the dryer is finished?

[starik36]

I bought a Kasa Smart Plug (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08LN3C7WK). It has an API for reporting energy usage. Luckily there was already a library (https://github.com/python-kasa/python-kasa) for calling this API. I wrote a small console app that checks energy usage and when I detect a drop, I know that the dryer is done. Then the app uses Twilio to send me a text message.

This is my second attempt at solving this problem. In the first incarnation, I attempted to do audio recognition for the sound that the dryer makes when its done, but I just couldn't get it to work well. The sound was too short to generate a good signature.

[dgacmu]

Ah, that's a nice way, thank you!