notion-plant-tracker

An express.js app running on a Raspberry Pi to keep track of watered plants using the notion API

The app receives requests from an Apple shortcuts when then sends a list of plants back which the user selects that have been watered.

Notion Plant Tracker Page

Apple Shortcut Script

If unable to view the script check the screenshots

Endpoints

/plants

GET

Returns a JSON object containing a map of my plants. The shortcuts script will use the list to ask the user to select which plants watered. The IDs are used to send a POST request for watered plants.

{
  "Buttercups": "<ID>",
  "Elephant Bush": "<ID>",
  "String of Dolphins": "<ID>",
}

/plants/schedule/:ids

GET

Returns a JSON object containing a key value pair of # of day -> array of plants. It is in this format because it is easier to consume on apple shortcuts. It is then used to set reminders on my phone.

{
  "3": [
    "Buttercups"
  ],
  "10": [
    "Elephant Bush"
  ],
  "15": [
    "String of Pearls"
  ]
}

/water-plants/:ids

POST

Based on the selected plants, the shortcut sends a POST request to the server to update when these plants were last watered.

Functionality

In my notion page I needed a front page where I can quickly look at when my plants were last watered. I previously had it in the format:

Watered on 4/11/22

• Elephant Bush
• Jade Plant

Watered on 4/23/22

• Ghost Plant

However this format didn't let me quickly figure out how long it's been since they were last watered. I needed a more human readible format:

Watered 5 days ago

• Elephant Bush
• Jade Plant

Watered 3 days ago

• Ghost Plant

In order for this format to be up to date, I used node-cron to run a cron job that updates the front page every midnight. Here is an example of it running:

Due to the limitations of the Notion API I have to make a request for every 'block' I want to delete. I decided to use bottleneck.js to make sure I am only sending a max of 3 requests per second to abide by the limit. Since some tasks may take longer I made sure to only have one one concurrent limiter.

Plant Server Service

In order for my server to run continously and on boot I needed to register a service file on systemd

[Unit]
Description=nodejs express server to keep track of plants
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=pi
Environment=NODE_VERSION=14
WorkingDirectory=/home/pi/programs/notion-plant-tracker
ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/git fetch --all
ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/git reset --hard origin/main
ExecStartPre=/home/pi/.nvm/nvm-exec npm install
ExecStart=/home/pi/.nvm/nvm-exec npm run start
Restart=always
RestartSec=3
TimeoutSec=300

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target