this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2025
96 points (98.0% liked)

Selfhosted

53146 readers
475 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

And I just made an HTTP endpoint in golang that outputs PNG labels with small QRs just as I need them, to print out on my Bluetooth label printer.

top 17 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] BOFH666@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Please elaborate,

The software looks ok, will install. UI looks like spoolman, no bs, just works. I like it.

But; what's with the label printer? Creating qr with a url to the inventory system looks handy.

I always have to dig thru gmail for order confirmations when I want to know where stuff was bought. This looks like a great solution for a first world problem.

[–] rcmd@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I keep track of lots of vintage devices in my basement, these lay on a CD shelf with narrow walls, and I want to keep track of their maintenance status, i.e. when did I charge the battery last time.

This little printer is pretty handy for labeling tasks, with one noticeable problem: the resolution is quite low, so I cannot afford printing full length domain name on such a tiny label. What I ended up with is writing my own microservice that puts fake http://i.nv/ domain in front of inventory ID. That domain is provided by DNSMASQ that I run on my server, and there's also NGINX listening for that domain and doing 302 onto an actual Homebox page.

Homebox sends URL parameters to the specified endpoint, and given that information it is possible to construct any label of any shape or form, it only needs to be a PNG image.

[–] BOFH666@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thanks for the answer!

Just bought a phomemo, looks like smart folks created a cups driver for it. (Ab)using dnsmasq and nginx is clever, will keep that in mind.

Perhaps not relevant in your case, but if you print qr, the caps of your links also affect the amount of data in the code:

https://hackaday.com/2025/02/26/shout-for-smaller-qr-codes/

[–] rcmd@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Surprisingly, it works! I just checked it on my microservice, indeed now QRs are smaller. This is a lifesaver tip, thanks a bunch!

[–] rcmd@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Grab Homebox here and start tracking your inventory!

[–] cosmicrose@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Homebox is great, I bought a usb label maker specifically for it

[–] buffing_lecturer@leminal.space 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Is the project current? I see an archived repository.

[–] jores@infosec.exchange 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

@rcmd do you use the original printer app and just import the PNG or are you able to print the label directly? If the latter, would you mind sharing the setup?

[–] rcmd@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

For now I use the vendor provided app, given it supports a share intent, so I can simply toss a PNG from Vivaldi at it and make it print the label. It does the job, and more importantly, it bypasses all possible obnoxious advertisement.

[–] jores@infosec.exchange 3 points 1 week ago

@rcmd Thanks for the info. I'm still hoping to find a printer for this label size (and roughly that price point) without having to rely on "ad-ware" apps to use it.

[–] CocaineShrimp@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

Fellow homebox user here. As an aside: I've got a storage room with a bunch of shelves and bins. For each bin, I've suck labels on them (using a label maker or sharpie + painters tape), and an NFC tag. Each box in Homebox has its own location, and each NFC tag is a direct link to its instance in Homebox.

It's much easier to categorize larger quantities of things that aren't as valuable as vintage media. Ie. hygiene products, off-season clothing, etc...

[–] Moonrise4846@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

How did you manage to make it lookup by inventory id? Normally it puts the whole uid in there which is much to big for the QR. Can you use Homebox qr search feature with your proxy?

[–] rcmd@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Homebox supports the https://<hostname>/a/<inventory_id> shorthand and does a 302 jump for you. Otherwise yes, I would have implemented the API search in a microservice.

[–] thehatfox@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What model of label printer is that?

[–] rcmd@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

It's Nelko P21, around $20.