Finally bringing Tessel hardware modules to modern embedded JavaScript. I’ll have a guide about writing the sensor driver on xs-dev.js.org soon, then I’ll add on the e-ink display example next.

Generating Open Graph Images in 11ty Integrate automatic OG image generation into your 11ty site

With my recent site redesign, I finally added a feature I’ve wanted for a while: open graph images. I wrote a bit about how I integrated it into 11ty and build them automatically.

hipsterbrown.com/training-dat...

Project Hail Mary was absolutely fantastic. Great visuals and music to go along with a wonderful story. 💯

In the meantime, it’s still so fun to see lights blink and stuff move after writing some code.

Working through examples in a guide to embedded JS using the ECMA-419 standard APIs running on a Raspberry Pi Pico or ESP32. Even after all these years, I still get tripped up by incorrect wiring 😅

After a bunch of much needed internal refactors to xs-dev, it feels good to be shipping DX improvements again. Now I need to actually start using it in some embedded JS projects of my own! 😆

Astral to join OpenAI Astral has entered into an agreement to join OpenAI as part of the Codex team.

OpenAI acquiring Astral (makers of uv, ruff, ty) is an odd pairing, especially with the motivation of integrating it into Codex. I suppose it’s similar to Anthropic acquiring Bun to support Claude Code. 🤨

astral.sh/blog/openai

Laundry Alerts with Home Assistant Fixing the forgotten laundry problem, finally

After years of overthinking, I settled on the solution to notifications from my washer and dryer using Home Assistant. As a bonus, they can now speak!

hipsterbrown.com/training-dat...

hipsterbrown.com A decade-overdue redesign — new visual identity, new content architecture, same self-hosted stack.

In a case of circular dependence, I wrote about my recent site redesign to seed the projects collection for my site. 😄

hipsterbrown.com/projects/per...

The Alloy SDK for Pebble Everything old is new again, and better than ever.

JavaScript apps are coming to your wrist…again!

hipsterbrown.com/training-dat...

Literally did the same today 😅 opengraph.xyz was helpful but never know until you post

Productivity Theater Reflecting on my experiences down the rabbit hole in the pursuit of efficiency

Every few years I find myself optimizing workspaces instead of just using the tools. Editor configs, Obsidian vaults, homelab dashboards. Now agentic coding tools. I wrote about recognizing the loop before falling all the way in.

hipsterbrown.com/training-dat...

Feels good to want to write and publish again.

hipsterbrown.com/training-dat...

Back on my blogging BS. I've deployed a full redesign, which I'll write about more in a bit, and feel more motivated to publish again.

Starting with some recent experience improving my Home Assistant automations:

hipsterbrown.com/training-dat...

🤖I've been learning about robot arms this summer and have been fascinated by the SO-ARM101, a low-cost, 3D-printable open source project. I built support for it in Viam to make it easier for other folks to configure and program their robot arms.

Full tutorial here: codelabs.viam.com/guide/so101/

A remote presentation about remote-controlled robots! This talk has been a lot of fun to put together, so I hope folks enjoy watching it too. 😄

💡Get a practical guide to taking hobby projects from desk to production at the talk by Nick Hehr, an invited expert with TC53.

Learn how WebRTC enables P2P communication, interact with embedded hardware & robotics via JS APIs, & make programming devices more accessible.

Nick Hehr's JSNation 2025 badge Join 10k engineers worldwide at JSNation 2025 and meet 50 top speakers at June 12 - 16, 2025

🤖 I’m bringing real-time robots to JSNation on June 12th & 16th! You can register via my badge and watch the live stream for free: https://gitnation.com/badges/jsnation-2025/nick_hehr

What kind of robots would you like to see me demo?

Feeling in my element this week at work. I’ve been hacking on hardware, 3D printing, presenting workshops, writing code, and generally feeling productive. 😎

Why We’re Bringing Pebble Back Eight years later, you still can’t beat a Pebble

I backed every Pebble kickstarter and built various apps for the platform. I’m so excited by the potential of its return! 🙌

ericmigi.com/blog/why-wer...

That’s daring work 😂

Modern parenting is watching Sesame Street with my son while being on a technical committee meeting call because scheduling is tricky. 😆

Successfully migrated a project using Polymer v1 components to Lit and Material Web Components 🙌 Feels good to remove all the vendored Bower packages and legacy build tools.

GitHub - DouweM/pixbyt: Pixbyt is a self-hosted Tidbyt app server for advanced apps that aren't supported by the official community app server that you can access through Tidbyt's mobile app. Pixbyt is a self-hosted Tidbyt app server for advanced apps that aren't supported by the official community app server that you can access through Tidbyt's mobile app. - DouweM/pixbyt

@jed.is this looks like something you might be interested in based on our conversation at ChinatownJS: github.com/DouweM/pixbyt

Replaced some ceiling lights with remote-controlled fans, which mean my smart switches are basically useless. So now I’m working on embedding an ESP8266 into the remotes for ESPHome integration. 🤓

🤔 Have you ever wanted to build your own vending machine that you could control with a web app?

🧙‍♂️One of my coworkers built one called the Sticker Wizard for our office! Check out the tutorial if you want to make it too:

codelabs.viam.com/guide/sticke...

Fair. For now, I can still have my house being cleaned while I sleep. 🤷‍♂️

I’m not afraid of robots taking over because I still need to flip my vacuum over to clear all the stuck hair from the brushroll several times a year.

It is so humbling as a dev to try creating an embedded display driver, especially without a datasheet and the only implementation being for a C++ graphics framework. 😵‍💫

Is this too much to pack for tinkering while on vacation? 😅How do I pick?