The time
Big enough to read from the couch, with the date under it.
Project · Home
Doorstep
A screen by my front door that answers the one question I ask every morning: when do I need to leave?
The next buses at my stop, live from the STM, turned into a countdown that already counts the walk. Plus the time, the weather, and what to put on before I step outside.
7:38Tuesday
Leave in6minBus 12 · 3 min walk
Next buses
⛅3°Feels like -1°
What to wearWarm coatToqueGlovesUmbrella
Everything before I step out, readable from the couch
Next buses
The next departures at each stop near home, from the STM's real-time feed. A ring marks buses tracked live, the rest are scheduled.
When to leave
Bus time, minus the walk to the stop, minus a spare minute. It counts down in blue, turns amber five minutes out, then says "Go now".
Weather
Now, feels like, the high and low, and the next eight hours with the chance of rain.
What to wear
Picked from the coldest "feels like" until I'm usually home, with rain, snow, wind, ice and sun. Montreal mornings lie about the evening.
Missed it?
The next bus I can still catch is always right underneath, so missing one is a shrug, not a sprint.
A web page on an old tablet
- STM real timeThe STM publishes every bus's predicted times (GTFS-Realtime, a few MB covering the whole network).
- A tiny server functionIt keeps the STM key secret, picks out only my stops, and shares one answer between screens every 25 seconds.
- The weatherComes straight from Open-Meteo, no key needed, every ten minutes.
- The wallA tablet in kiosk mode: no app to install, and every site update shows up on its own.
Built for a wall
Quiet in the living room
Dark by default so it doesn't light up the room, dimmed from 11 pm to 6 am, and it keeps the screen awake on its own. The colours are blue and amber, never green and red, so the countdown reads for colour-blind eyes, and every state also says it in words.
Private by design
Nothing about where I live
My stops are set on the board itself and kept on the server, never in the site's code. The board sits behind a password, and this page only shows an illustration.