u/aa33bb

Some of you might have seen I posted a little over a month ago about Avocado. Avocado is an invisible for screen sharing or recording teleprompter that hides in your notch, but can also float anywhere on the screen. Still free and has a one time payment to unlock all the features.

Despite a very saturated space and a rather niche product, I got really positive feedback - a lot of people wanted to try it, and quite a few of you have used it. So first of all, I wanted to thank everyone for giving it a shot. And second, I wanted to share an update on the new features.

The whole idea of Avocado is make presenting things less painful - whether it's a demo, a presentation, a speech, or even an interview. I tried to make the experience smooth and hassle-free.

The new features were mostly built based on community feedback, but also after doing some research and seeing what others are building. I wanted to create a way for it to be used on non-Mac devices without resorting to cross-platform frameworks or tools.

Anyway. The first version shipped without auto-update, I didn't know if anyone was going to use it, so to be honest I didn't even bother integrating it. Well, now it has it.

I also learned that a few people use hardware setups and need to mirror text for it to work, which it now does, and even more than that.

I was also annoyed that when you have a presentation you need to manually copy presenter notes, so Avocado now just imports all the notes when you drop a .pptx file onto it. Even better, it will put script markers for each slide so you can quickly jump between them (CMD+C), and if you combine that with Smart Cues (which uses on-device Apple Intelligence), it automatically injects pacing markers - [pause][breathe][smile] - into your script. You can obviously edit them to have it your way.

A few people have multi-camera setups and need to turn their head quickly to look at another camera. The new Follow Mouse feature makes this less painful, the prompter will follow whichever monitor you're looking at when you move the mouse there.

My favorite feature so far is Director Mode. As I mentioned, I wanted a way to let people use Avocado on non-macOS devices without building separate apps. To do that, I built two things:

  1. Director Controls: you can hand off control of your prompter to someone else. They can pace your presentation or do a myriad of things: play, pause, scrub position, adjust scroll speed, toggle Adaptive Speed, and jump between cue markers. Live progress, remaining time, and word per minute speed are always visible to the director.
  2. Director View: essentially a way to turn any other device into a teleprompter. No app install required. Works on iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac. Font size, colors, alignment, and smart cue markers stay in sync in real time. You can put your iPad or Android tablet under a physical prompter and read from it, Avocado will still pace your script and jump through cues using the microphone and keyboard of the Mac you have nearby. More here.

If you have a use case for Avocado, drop it in the comments and I'll DM you a 20% off code for Pro.

To follow the rules:

u/aa33bb — 8 days ago

I have a terrace with no running water, so I went with a storage box and a pump (LetPot). Great little device, but the built-in automation is completely isolated. You set a schedule in the app, it runs, and that's it. No way to combine it with anything else in your smart home.

I wanted things like: water only if it hasn't rained, get a push notification when watering starts, or have my "leaving home" routine enable the watering cycle. None of that is possible from the LetPot app alone — so I built a Homebridge plugin (to have it in my Home app). Here's what you can do once it's in HomeKit:

Notifications. Two occupancy sensors — "Watering Started" and "Watering Ended" — briefly trigger when the pump turns on or off.

Skip watering after rain. If you have a weather station in HomeKit (or maybe another automation that checks weather), condition your watering automation on it. Trigger at 06:00, but only if the rain sensor hasn't fired. Set it once, forget about it.

Different durations on different days. Create two automations — one to turn the pump on, one to turn it off. Give weekends a later off-time for a longer soak. The LetPot app can't do this.

Vacation mode. A "Leaving for a few days" scene that enables Cycle Watering, paired with the Low Water leak sensor notification so you know if the tank runs dry while you're gone. Maybe you can ask friends to refill it...

"Water my plants" via Siri. Just say "Hey Siri, turn on Pump." Works out of the box.

Install: search homebridge-letpot in the Homebridge UI, add LetPot email and password in the config, that's it.

Posting here as maybe someone else finds themselves in the same situation and it could save you a couple of hours of work.

npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/homebridge-letpot

GitHub: https://github.com/genaardo/homebridge-letpot

u/aa33bb — 12 days ago

I recently set up watering for my terrace. Since there's no running water out there, I went with a storage box and a pump — specifically the LetPot automatic watering system. Great little device, but no HomeKit support and no Homebridge plugin existed for it. I wanted to fix that and share in case anyone else needs it. What you get in the Home app:

  • Irrigation valve to enable/disable your watering schedule
  • Auto Cycle and Intermittent Mode switches
  • Remaining time countdown on active runs
  • Low water alert via a Leak Sensor
  • Optional push notifications when the pump starts or stops (motion detected atm, but might do it differently)

Changes in the LetPot app reflect in HomeKit instantly via their cloud MQTT.

Install: search homebridge-letpot in the Homebridge UI, drop in your email and password, done.

npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/homebridge-letpot

GitHub: https://github.com/genaardo/homebridge-letpot

reddit.com
u/aa33bb — 13 days ago