MIMOSA: The Smarter Inventory Management System

Are you tired of rifling through drawers and struggling to find the items you need? As someone with 138 drawers, I know the feeling. Labeling them can be helpful, but it's not always the best solution if you're dyslexic like me. That's why I decided to make my organizers smart, and it turned out to be cheaper and easier than I expected!

First, I realized that my organizers didn't have a back for me to stick LEDs onto. So, I got creative and cut out a piece of cardboard to fit the internal geometry of the organizers. Then, I traced the position of all the drawers onto the cardboard.

Next, I added individually addressable neopixels in the middle of the traced positions. I could have bought a strip with the correct spacing, but being the thrifty person I am, I decided to buy a 1-meter strip of 100 leads and cut them out individually. This did require a significant amount of time soldering all the connections between the LEDs, but it only took me around 4 hours.

Once that step was completed, I soldered on the microcontroller. I chose the D1 mini and flushed it with WLED, as it's a powerful and user-friendly interface. After testing that all the LEDs work with the WLED interface, I put the LED backing into the organizer and put all the drawers back in.

And with that, the hardware portion of this project is complete!

If you're wondering about the cost of upgrading your organizers, I've got you covered! The microcontroller I used for this project cost me £2.40, and the LEDs cost me £18. So in total, the upgrade cost me around £20. And to sweeten the deal, I have 40 LEDs left over that I can use for future projects!

Now it's time to introduce you to the software side of things.

Meet MIMOSA - short for "Mellow Labs Inventory Management and Organization System Apparatus". Just like a refreshing mimosa, this system will make your life brighter and more organized! MIMOSA is a self-hosted open source Flask-based interface that allows you to store all your items in a clean and easy-to-use layout.

Now, full disclosure: I'm still new to front-end development, so the site isn't the most visually stunning thing you've ever seen. However, I plan to continue updating it as I learn and find new use cases for it. If you want to see a demo of how it works, check out the YouTube video about this project.

Some of the current features of MIMOSA include:

• Adding, editing, and removing items
• Displaying names, links, images, and positions
• Locating items by turning on the LED behind the drawer with the item
• Support for multiple WLED nodes
• Quick search function

With MIMOSA, you can easily manage all your items in one place and quickly find what you need. So, why not give it a try and see how it can make your life a little more organized?

If you're interested in contributing to the development of MIMOSA, you're in luck! The project is open source on GitHub.

Are you a fan of DIY projects that can save you a ton of money? Then you might be interested in supporting me and my work! I've found that my niche is creating relatively cheap DIY versions of expensive products, and I love sharing these projects with others. https://www.patreon.com/Mellow_labs

If you want to help me make more of these awesome projects, please consider supporting me on Patreon. Your support will help me buy materials, invest in new tools, and dedicate more time to creating content that you'll love. Plus, by becoming a patron, you'll get access to exclusive content and behind-the-scenes updates that you won't find anywhere else.