Shopping List

Alabin is a barcode scanner that helps you to keep track of the groceries you need to buy. Thanks to the GSM module you can place it wherever you like - we prefer the kitchen, though.

Arduino & GSM

Alabin is based on an Arduino Uno, a SIM900 GSM module and an omnidirectional scanner - all stuffed into a custom made box. We worked out a tutorial to show you how to assemble it.

Open Source

We started Alabin as a project to learn the basics of electronics and coding. We are bloody coding amateurs, to be honest. And we think that you can help make this thing a whole lot better.

Wait. What, why?

The Idea.

"Open your fridge. Pour that last sip of milk into your cereals. Just before you throw the carton into the trash, pass it under Alabin to scan the barcode. And voilá, the product appears on your shopping-list."

Alabin was born because we wanted to learn how to code. Programming hardware, designing our front-end and setting-up a back end-database. A device which would have a crack at helping urbanites do their provisioning more efficiently turned out to be the project idea which would combine all three fields.

Thank you!

Props

The internet is full of awesome people, who do share their fantastic work. We used a lot of these resources to learn how to code and to use Arduino hardware. That's why we want to contribute, what we were working on. It might help you as well.

Thank you to: Benjamin Maus for sharing how to hook up a PS/2 barcode scanner with an Arduino. To curcuitsathome as well as instructables.com for awesome insights and tutorials. To Jemery Blum for producing the best (and nerdiest) videos on how to get started with Arduino. To cooking-hacks for the documentation on how to use AT Commands and the SIM900 Module. To komputer for providing sick fast delivery of arduino hardware components (and always adding a package of gummy bears to each delivery). To elecfreaks for providing documentation and plenty of resources on how to use the SIM900 Module. To tinkering-arduino for helping to finally get jumpers, the serial connection and libraries right. And especially to the folks at Bootstrap for providing such an excellent design framework!

To all those we googled up on the way and forgot: Thank you!