Two Personal Projects in Progress: Money Management and Nexa

I am building two personal projects and sharing them before they become polished case studies. The wrong assumptions, removed features, and awkward prototypes are often the useful part.

A simple money-management app

The first project should make personal finances understandable without becoming a dashboard nobody maintains. The challenge is that “simple” is not “small.” It needs fast income and expense entry, recurring-cost awareness, a coherent view of transactions, private local data, and an obvious next action. Every field trades accuracy for friction; every shortcut trades speed for trust. I am looking for the point where the tool is light enough to become a habit and structured enough to help. If circumstances allow, I plan to launch the first version near the beginning of Mordad. The name can wait.

Nexa: an aware room, not an invasive one

Nexa connects lights, temperature, presence, weather, sound, and routines. A small robot—loosely inspired by WALL-E’s expressive simplicity—translates room state into something readable without pretending to be human.

Current actions include Ready, Sleep, Play, Read, Study, Draw, Listen, Search, Talk, Window, and Football. Some timing and transitions are rough, but the range tests whether the character can communicate attention without becoming noisy.

NEXA / FIELD TESTNexa interaction field test

00:00 / 00:00

Sound is the next layer: a restrained vocabulary for confirmations, mechanical movement, and playful states—not noise on every click.

The engineering below the character

A good animation cannot hide a stale sensor or a failed command. Nexa must decide what happens when data arrives late, the network disappears, routines conflict, or an automation needs consent. If the character looks toward a window or changes a light, the system should have a reason and expose it. The finance app and Nexa look unrelated, but both reduce uncertainty. They need clear feedback, sensible defaults, useful failure states, and enough transparency to earn trust. I will tag future updates #MM and #IOT.

Two Personal Projects in Progress: Money Management and Nexa

A simple money-management app

Nexa: an aware room, not an invasive one

The engineering below the character

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