Hey everyone! It’s been rad to see folks still building kegbots in 2026, gosh!
Kegbot is approximately 22 years old now. I think it’s been overdue for a little love and maintenance, so I wanted to share what I have in mind and invite your feedback.
Overall goals
- Make it easier, simpler, and fun to build a new Kegbot in 2026.
- Make it easier to contribute and hack on Kegbot.
- Stop doing anything we (I) can’t really support.
- Bring all dependencies up-to-date.
- Existing systems can be migrated in place (but don’t forget to backup first!)
Major architectural changes
- ESP32-based controller, http reporting. 10-15 years ago, Arduino devices & data over serial was pretty much the only game in town. And we did some (at the time) cool stuff to connect it to tablets (usb host mode). Times have long since changed, and (a) esp32 micocontrollers are ubiquitous, cheap, and awesome; (b) host mode support is terrible and limiting; and (c) we can do much better with ip/http/ble-capable devices. Let’s do it.
- Clean, easier to maintain OpenAPI-spec’d API. Long ago, we used protocol buffers as a sort of IDL to generate the rest API. But it’s a pain to maintain, has always had poor documentation, and honestly I dread looking at it. Let’s start fresh with an intuitive, idiomatic, and easier to maintain OpenAPI-spec’able API.
- Modern, client-side React web frontend. Yikes! We’re still running on Bootstrap 3. In addition to being a very dated component library, React is super popular for a reason (and your author has built many projects and products with it).
Other major changes
- EOL the Android app. It’s been poorly maintained, app stores are an enormous pain, and (with the changes above) it should be easier for others build their own native apps if they are interested.
- EOL kegbot-pycore. It’s the old “read a serial device, report back to
kegbot-server" program and doesn’t really have a place; all that work will happen on kegboard-esp32.
I’m sure I’m forgetting a bunch of things, but those are the major things that have been on my mind.
So now I turn it over to you: What do you think? What would you like to see? I’ll keep this post updated as the plan evolves.