Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?

I build a "SaaS" wine app, for tracking wines in my cellar and for tasting notes as well.

"SaaS" in quotes since it runs in a small production setup with all the bells and whistles (ie. CI/CD pipelines, continuous releases, user signup etc.), but I'm the only user :-)

I'm a wine enthusiast, i.e. not a professional but interested enough to do a WSET2 in my spare time (I'll do a WSET3 when I find time some day). I like to/need to keep track of two things as part of my wine hobby: Wines in my cellar, and tasting notes.

Used to keep the wine registry in excel and notes in Evernote, however especially the excelsheet lacked features, like easy searches from a mobile device, and notes about the wines in my cellar (not tasting notes, as I have plenty bottles I need to taste but havn't yet, and I still need some notes on those to remember where the heck I got them from and why).

Also, WSET2 tasting notes a much quicker to do with the proper template, but copy/pasting text in Evernote became too annoying (again, phone).

So, I build my own app to have exactly the features and mobile friendly GUI I want. I'm the only user on purpose, because then I can keep building and changing features to be just like I want them.

Yes I know there are some "wine tracking apps" out there, like CellarTracker and Vivino, but they dont fit my needs. CellarTracker is closest to my needs but way too clumpsy GUI and not mobile friendly -- I don't have my laptop with me when I'm in the cellar to find a wine for tonight, I have my phone.

Will I every make up the time I spent building it in time saved compared to my excel/evernote setup? Nope, not even close. But it was a fun side project, and I like fiddling with the hosting/Ops part.

Off-topic but thank you for mentioning WSET. It's the first time I've heard about it. In UK, there's something basic offered by bbc: https://www.bbcmaestro.com/courses/jancis-robinson/an-unders...

Sure. You can get WSET 1, 2 and 3 for sure in UK (https://www.wsetglobal.com/wset-school-london/wset-courses/).

Another popular wine education is CMS (Court Of Master Sommerliers) https://www.courtofmastersommeliers.org/current-course-price...

WSET is supposed to be more focused on the production of wine, where CMS is supporsed to have more focus on service/serving (for waiters). Its details and I think perhaps more of a different in the lower levels.

I can recommend WSET. I had a pretty good knowledge of wine before I started, so I did WSET2 first. WSET1 is short and pretty basic, but very good for beginners and/or if you just want to have a taske before taking one of the higher levels. WSET2 is still beginner domain I think, since there is an exam but its not a practical exam (i.e. no tasting exam). WSET3 gets serious :-)

Here is an idea because you clearly enjoy wine stuff. I can check wine reviews online, but as a total wine noob, a) I don't want to shell out big bucks b) lot of the recommendations are not available at the local chain. What I want is for someone to provide recommendations from a given online store; done by a real person.

Not a tech project, but made my first batch of wine this year. Was immense fun, and just about drinkable.

We actually also have a hobby wine production. About 200 plants. Established back in 2010ish. Its very insightful and a very interesting perspective to add to “just” drinking and tasting wine. I’ve done 5 vintages now, and there is still so. much. to. learn… and thats before the wine even gets into the bottle.

What country are you in? We are en Denmark, which is horrible for reds.. but red is “real wine” so thats what we are making

Not parent, but you might try Wine on a Dime reviews on YouTube (reviews wines under $20) or WineAndCheeseFriday.com (reviews various wines including easy-to-find ones).

Full Disclosure: I am affiliated with the latter :)

Often considered doing this! I’d miss the reviews though… CellarTracker, not vivino ;)

Yes, I agree. I subscribe to Wine Spectator for reviews for this reason

Heh, I built something similar for my partner and myself: https://wine.unobtanium.de/ It's not very sophisticated (as we're not sophisticated wine people), but we've sometimes found ourselves standing in front of the wine rack in the super market (as I said, not sophisticated) wondering which of those we already had tasted and how we liked it.

There's not that much in it because it was put on a bit of a break owing to a broken server a while ago, but it's back up again :)