Pack
Create or resume a guided packing session, record the box basics, and capture items rapidly from a phone.
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Private LAN application · Physical-to-digital inventory
NFC Storage
A phone-first household inventory system that connects boxes, stored items, photos, food shelves, and searchable records to inexpensive NFC tags.
Guided packing
Tap-to-open records
Food storage
Raspberry Pi hosted
Private by default
NFC STORAGEPRIVATE LAN
GUIDED PACKING
Capture items
Box → photos → tag → seal
BoxesOrganized
ItemsSearchable
TagsAssigned
Tap tag
→
Open record
→
Scan history
SearchPhotosFood shelvesTrash + restore
The problem
Stored safely should not mean forgotten completely.
Boxes and shelves work until finding one item means opening several containers or searching multiple rooms. NFC Storage connects each physical location to a structured digital record, making household storage retrievable without exposing the contents of the home to the public internet.
Document
Add photos, categories, locations, quantities, dates, and notes while the items are still in hand.
Tag
Register and assign an NFC tag, test its token-based destination, then seal and store the container.
Retrieve
Tap or search to open the correct record, review its history, and update the inventory when it changes.
What the application has become
More than a list of boxes.
The system now covers the full inventory lifecycle—from intake and photos through NFC assignment, retrieval, food tracking, recovery, and maintenance.
Boxes, items, and visual records
Full create, edit, move, archive, restore, and guarded-delete workflows with categories, locations, multi-photo uploads, thumbnails, and browser-ready HEIC conversion.
Tags that remain manageable
Register, assign, reassign, unassign, disable, mark lost or found, retire, and safely reset tags. Token scans update counts, timestamps, scan history, and the activity log.
Pantry, refrigerator, and freezer
Food shelves support item photos, quantities, quick adjustments, staples, category and shelf management, moves between areas, shelf-level NFC tags, and centralized search.
Built to survive real use
Role-based access, archive-first deletion, a centralized Trash workflow, dependency guards, activity history, isolated tests, and verified database-and-upload backups protect the system from careless clicks and failed upgrades.
Physical interface
The tag is the shortcut. The inventory is the system.
NFC removes the need to type a box number or navigate through menus while standing in front of a shelf. The tag opens the matching record immediately, while grouped search and the dashboard provide a complete view from anywhere on the home network.
- One-handed, mobile-first box packing and item capture
- Global search across boxes, items, tags, locations, categories, food shelves, and food items
- Public-token scan pages without exposing raw database identifiers
- Scan history and activity records that show how the inventory changes
ASSIGNED TAGTOKEN READY
StorageSelected record
- Location
- Private
- Inventory
- Searchable
- Photos
- Attached
- History
- Recorded
Architecture
Fast on the phone. Durable on the Pi. Invisible from the public web.
Laravel handles the application and authorization workflows, MariaDB stores the relational inventory, and Docker Compose makes the Nginx, PHP, and database services repeatable on ARM64 Raspberry Pi hardware. The unauthenticated token route is useful to a person standing at a tagged container while the application itself remains local-network only.
NFC tag→iPhone→Token route→Laravel→MariaDB→Docker on Pi
My role
Product designer, developer, deployer, and daily user.
I designed the data model around the physical act of packing and retrieving items, built the phone workflow, connected NFC tags to controlled local records, expanded the same system into food storage, deployed it on the Pi, and tested the destructive paths that matter—editing, moving, archiving, restoring, deleting, backing up, and upgrading real inventory.