Introduction

In today’s world, technology is advancing at an unprecedented rate. We are now able to automate various tasks and make our lives easier thanks to the introduction of smart devices such as smart fridges. Smart fridges have been around for a while now and they have revolutionized the way we manage our food and drinks.

However, there has been one major issue with these devices – their connection stability. Due to the inherent architecture of the internet, devices such as smart fridges can experience intermittent connection drops, causing delays or even failures in the execution of intended functionalities.

At ShitOps, we recognized this problem and set out to find a solution that would revolutionize the smart fridge industry. After months of research, development, and testing, we present to you the most advanced, stable, and secure smart fridge system ever created, utilizing Metallb and MacBook Pro.

Problem

Smart fridges face the challenge of having a reliable connection to the internet so that the device can perform the intended functionalities efficiently without any delay. So even when devices like smart refrigerators need to communicate with remote servers for updates or queries, it should do so flawlessly. However, in the existing setup, unreliable connectivity remains a significant issue, leading to frustration to users.

Some of the reasons include:

  • Unstable network.
  • Interference from other devices.
  • Outside disturbances.

To rectify these faults, solutions have been developed. But most of them aren’t robust enough and require excessive external infrastructure. As mentioned earlier, these devices operate on the web protocol that grants them entry into a global network. Any obstruction in the middle can create failures.

We set out to develop a solution that would make such devices more reliable and efficient to use.

Solution

To overcome the reliability and efficiency challenges of smart fridge systems, we came up with a technological solution that leverages Metallb and MacBook Pro to provide robust stability for the connection between the device and server.

Metallb is an ever-flexible bare metal load balancer that provides stability for diverse TCP 4443 service types. On its own, it may not do much, but when combined with a powerful macOS device like MacBook Pro, it becomes capable of handling the most complicated setups designed to generate maximum throughput.

Let’s dive into the architecture and see how it works.

Architecture

The smart fridge system consists of two separate networks:

  1. The local area network (LAN), which connects the smart fridge, router, and MacBook Pro

  2. The cloud network, which connects a remote server where database storing food details is kept.

Implementation

We will look at different configurations on the devices involved in this project. There are various changes we must make to each component to ensure everything runs smoothly.

Router Configuration

The router provides access to the internet. Suppose we want to have limited global IP addresses. In that case, the leased addresses or port forwarding will need more configurations and time-wasting. But thanks to the feature of Metallb, it can automatically simulate IP addresses and stays consistent with all other traffic you might have without conflicts.

In essence, our focus is to have Metallb provide a load balancing algorithm that distributes requests from all client stations that are looking to access the remote server so that it can fetch data stored, using different ports assigned while creating each pod. Let’s start with setting up the Metallb.

Metallb Configuration

  1. Deploy Namespace
# create Namespace in K8s
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/metallb/metallb/v0.8.2/manifests/namespace.yaml
  1. Set up RBAC
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/metallb/metallb/v0.8.2/manifests/metallb-rbac.yaml
  1. Add the Metallb manifest
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/metallb/metallb/v0.8.2/manifests/metallb.yaml
  1. Configure IP addressing for Metallb using config-map in the same namespace created above:
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  namespace: metallb-system
  name: config
data:
  config: |
    address-pools:
      - name: default
        protocol: layer2
        addresses:
          - <insert-local-ip>

Above is an example of a YAML file that contains configurations that can be applied to create a connection between nodes and pods. In this case, we specify the protocol (layer2) used, and also, we capitalize on one specific service address that serves as our backend. We then choose a supporting CIDR that inserts over all other IPs served by Kubernetes.

MacBook Pro Configuration

Just like the router, we will configure the MacBook Pro to use Metallb load balancing signal distribution. With macOS’ dev, we can have end-to-end encryption for the data transfer process so that the security of the transmitted information will maintain its integrity.

You can set up a MAC client that uses OpenVPN check it out here. Once the VPN servers are running, the pods’ deployment and service endpoint should be undertaken.

Results

After applying the above configurations, we can start using the smart fridge system. The new system will experience stable connections, making the device more efficient to use.

Now choose what you want to do with intuitive screen that graces our smart fridge surface: browse recipes, receive recommendations from groceries or fetch all required food details needed to stay on track with your diet.

All in all, the genius of Metallb and MacBook Pro has combined to produce a robust solution that guarantees a stable and efficient experience for users.

Conclusion

At ShitOps, we believe in pushing the boundaries of technology to provide innovative solutions for complex problems. Our team of engineers worked tirelessly to develop a solution that revolutionizes the smart fridge industry, and we’re confident that our implementation of Metallb as the load balancer and MacBook Pro as the server will be a game-changer.

We hope that this blog post has helped shed some light on the benefits of using advanced technologies to solve existing challenges in the smart home industry. Don’t forget to share your thoughts and give us feedback on this post.