I am a film photographer and do some darkroom printing and always wanted one of the proper, advanced f-stop timers, but never really wanted to spend a couple hundred dollars on one. Eventually I figured my phone was already perfectly capable of doing the timing, it just needed a way to switch the enlarger.
So I built Darkplug around a cheap smart plug. The app controls the enlarger over the local network and does regular timing, f-stop timing, test strips, has an intuitive dodge/burn workflow, split grade (2 timing channels) and paper development timing. I’ve been using it for a few months in my improvised bathroom darkroom.
Fair warning: the app was blindly vibe coded using Codex and Xcode. Darkplug uses a red-on-black interface designed to stay safe next to photo paper. Darkplug+ unlocks advanced tools as a one-time in-app purchase with no subscriptions.
The app works with Shelly smart plugs. It is developed by Péter Szentkirályi and available now on the App Store.
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing