TRMNL Metro Transit plugin
I recently got a TRMNL since I wanted an e-ink display to function as a dashboard for our home calendar, picture frame, and other things. Initially I wanted to set this up using an old kindle but even after going through the process of jailbreaking it, I was unable to get this dashboard functionality working.
The TRMNL allows developers to write plugins which requires an additional purchase to unlock the Developer edition. I wasn't quite sure I wanted to commit to the whole thing but I learned that I could use trmnlp to develop plugins locally, and if successful, I could go ahead an purchase the frame and developer add-on.
The first thing I wanted to add was a plugin to get updates from Metro Transit so that I could easily check what my local bus stops next bus was. This is what it looks like:
I had done a version of this before years ago for the Pebble smart watch which used my location to find nearby stops and show me the next buses scheduled for them. I never wrote about it or released the code for it. Luckily, the Metro Transit API is very easy to work and once I figured out where that data was going, all I needed to do was write the Liquid templates to display the information in a format that would most match the UI Metro Transit uses on their bus stops.
I'm very happy how this looks and I have all sorts of ideas for more plugins to write.
If you have a TRMNL, live in the Twin Cities, and like our local public transit system as much as I do, you can install this plugin by forking the plugin and adding your stop ID. You can even do multiple stops by forking it multiple times and adding a new stop to each of them. The code is public as well if you'd like to check that out.