

Show HN: Zezti.com -- Keep track of your groceries - vishnumenon

I just finished making zezti.com. I wanted something to help me keep track of what groceries i had and what i needed, without having to maintain a list. Zezti does just that, so i can check a list of exactly what i have in my pantry from the store. It also has a list for the old-fashioned folks.<p>While making this, i also learned Rails, JQuery, and JQuery Mobile. It is still a little rough, and I have heard that is certain situations, when adding an item to a list it starts looping. I have not yet been able to isolate it, but if you do, that would be hugely helpful. I hope you enjoy using this. (Sorry, the initial page load is rather slow, I'm working on it.)<p>P.S: There's also a mobile version at m.zezti.com
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mahdireilly
Not bad, I was working on something similar a while back, but didn't really
push through with it since I know pretty much everything that is in my
fridge(I am very serious about food and spend a lot of time picking out
ingredients).

Few points:

-I dunno who you are marketing to with the red and black color choice. You should pick a layout and color scheme that your intended users are most comfortable with.

-When I add apples, I should be given the option to drill down into the types of apples.

-I haven't poked around enough, but I can't find the button to add more items using the list format.

-Since people generally share a fridge, you should allow multiple logins that can access the same list.

-Maybe an alert when the produce is about to spoil?

-I like the recipe integration. You should add a sort filter to look for recipes that use item(s) X, show the recipes with the least amount of ingredients needed, add recipes of foods about to spoil, add diet restrictions and regional recipe preferences, make sure you have the appropriate quantities of food for the recipe.

-recommend foods and recipes based on what they have liked so far

-for the shop locally, add a feature to order groceries online. It is not very common now (I am in Austin near the WholeFoods flagship store, so its normal for me), but amazon has been testing their own service and are doing well.

-for in store purchases, you should group items by location and should tell what aisle it should be on(easier yet, just add the row description that it would be on).

-advertise certain brands that work best in a recipe, etc.

-advertise kitchen appliances/knives/etc. for sale based on their eating habits. If they go through a loaf of bread in 4 days, recommend a bread machine and bread knife.

-If someone has a food that is always purchased as soon as it runs out, have it auto fed-back to the shopping list when it is deleted from the pantry.

-Have people post their own recipes for sharing, and give them a cut of whatever products sell based on their recommendation.

Well, I didn't mean to make this many feature requests, but I did stop myself
from continuing to append. If you want to spitball more stuff, just lemme know
and I would be happy to help. At this point I don't have the bandwidth to pick
up my project again and the next best thing is helping someone else build it
and have them scratch my itch for me. ;)

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puranjay
A quick first impression:

Change the font! That's a disastrous font to use on any website. Pick
something more 'standard' like Arial or Verdana.

At the conceptual level, it sounds like a great idea. But when you actually
get down to executing it, it can be a pain: who has the time to buy groceries,
look in the fridge, and type everything out on a website?

You know what would be awesome? Taking a picture of your fridge or grocery
cabinet, and the software automatically recognizing the brands and quantity of
groceries without having to fill out any forms. That, I'd pay for!

~~~
vishnumenon
Thanks for the feedback. I have heard a lot of negative things about the font
-- Ill probably change it soon. I wish i could implement the picture idea, but
honestly i have no idea where to even start, or if technology is advanced
enough for that. If you have any idea, i would love to hear it.

~~~
puranjay
With that, you are looking at advanced image recognition..you can't start off
unless you at least know what you're doing.

Don't stress over too much if this thing doesn't turn out to be a success.
Don't cheer too much either if it does. You're an entrepreneur, and
entrepreneurs live by one rule: "On the the next one..."

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revorad
I am not sure if it was the same app but I remember seeing something like this
on hn before. I will use this but not unless you already have a list of
groceries I can pick and put in my list. I am not going to fill a ten field
form to add each item.

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vishnumenon
There actually is a wizard to add from a predefined selection of groceries.
Please try it!

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revorad
Ok but it's too clever and hidden. Why make me type at all? Just make it
visual. Show me photos of apples, potatoes, onions, cheese etc, so that I can
add them with one click.

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vishnumenon
clickable: <http://www.zezti.com> <http://m.zezti.com>

