Dispatch

A tiny thermal printer that gives you something to hold onto when you step away from the screen.

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Dispatch runs on a Raspberry Pi and talks to Azure OpenAI. You open it on your phone, tap a button — morning, afternoon, evening, night — and a receipt prints at your desk. Weather, a quote, a word of the day, something that happened in history, a fortune, a joke. The whole thing fits in your pocket.

The idea

Most of the day is spent looking at screens that want something from you. Dispatch doesn't.

It prints something and goes quiet.

It's for the coffee before you open your laptop. The walk to the kitchen between meetings. The ten minutes before bed when you don't want to scroll. A small, physical object that gives you permission to actually be somewhere — without the pull of a feed or a notification.

There are no likes. No replies. No algorithm deciding what you should feel. Just a warm piece of paper and whatever you do with it next.

What it prints

🌅 Morning — weather, a quote of the day, a word to carry with you, something that happened today in history, a fortune, a joke to start the day right

☀️ Afternoon — weather update, a focus quote, a fun fact, a 2-minute challenge to reset your energy, a snack idea, a joke

🌆 Evening — tomorrow's forecast, a reflection question to close the day, a movie/book/podcast recommendation, a wind-down ritual, a fortune

🌙 Night — tomorrow's weather, a gratitude prompt, a small intention to carry into tomorrow, a dream seed, a bedtime joke

Custom — type anything. Ask a question, get a poem, request ASCII art. It formats to the receipt width and centers everything cleanly.

Hardware

• Raspberry Pi Zero W (or any Pi)
• Any 58mm thermal printer
  • USB ESC/POS printers work out of the box
  • Bluetooth printers work via your phone's native print dialog

Setup

git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/dispatch.git
cd dispatch
pip install -r requirements.txt
cp .env.example .env
# Fill in your values
python app.py

Open http://<your-pi-ip>:5000 in your phone's browser.

Configuration

Copy .env.example to .env and fill in your values:

# Azure OpenAI
AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINT=https://your-resource.openai.azure.com
AZURE_OPENAI_DEPLOYMENT=gpt-4o-mini
AZURE_OPENAI_API_VERSION=2024-12-01-preview
AZURE_OPENAI_KEY=your_key_here

# Personalisation
CHOTTU_NAME=Your Name
CHOTTU_LOCATION=City,State

Auto-start on boot (Raspberry Pi)

Add to crontab (crontab -e):

@reboot sleep 30 && cd /home/pi/dispatch && python3 app.py >> ~/dispatch.log 2>&1 &

Receipt width

Default is 32 characters (58mm paper). Change WIDTH at the top of app.py to match your printer — 42 chars for 80mm paper.

Acknowledgements

Built with Flask, wttr.in, and Azure OpenAI. Printed on whatever thermal paper you have lying around.