Why i started this project? ⁉️

[fredygerman]

Why Umeme Upo 🚀

Hello everyone,

Are you tired of the never-ending power struggles in Dar es Salaam? Well same here 😪.

We are all tired of these main things :

1. Power Cuts: Ugh, those dreaded outages.
2. Uncertainty: Not knowing when the power will come back.
3. Guesswork: Wondering if the power will be cut while you're in the middle of something important.
4. Lack of Remote Power Checks: The constant need to call people just to check if there's power at home.

But wait, I thought there must be a way for me to utilize the tech around me and my skill to fix this 🤔.

I stumbled upon a game-changer - my trusty Home Lab/Home Server. 🏡 It's not just for my smart home; it's my power oracle! I realized I could make this server accessible via the internet. Now, I can find out if there's power at home by simply trying to open the linked domain. I even set up email notifications and automated domain pinging with uptimekuma. 📡

Guess what? My neighbors caught found out of this and they couldn't stop calling me to ask about the power situation! 😅 They wanted to know if it's safe to head home or when to expect the lights back on. Thanks to my setup, I had all the answers. But trust me all the calls just to answer with Upo or Haupo was really annoying 😪.

Being a developer, I couldn't resist the urge to automate everything. 🤖 I set two goals:

1. Create a user-friendly page for my neighbors and me to check the power status at my location.
2. Develop a notification system to let subscribers know when the power goes on or off.

So, I launched this repository and got a friend @faustin_henry to design a slick UI. But here's the best part: The Tanzania dev community discovered my project, and they're super excited to join the journey! 🎉

The response was incredible! 😃 So, I've decided to turn this into a community project, and I can't wait to share the roadmap and objectives in the next announcement. Stay tuned for some electrifying updates! ⚡🔌