About Kegbot
About the Project
Kegbot is a free, open source project, created in 2003 by Mike Wakerly. It is currently maintained by volunteers and community members. The project exists to provide a free, capable keg management system for homebrewers and hobbyists.
Support
There is no official support for Kegbot. The best way to get help is through the community discussion forum, where other users and contributors can assist you.
Contributing
Contributions are always welcome. Whether it's patches, documentation improvements, or pull requests on GitHub — we appreciate all help. Check out the source repositories on GitHub to get started.
Hardware
The Kegbot project does not sell hardware directly. Bevbot LLC previously produced the Kegboard Pro Mini as part of a Kickstarter campaign in 2014, but that product is now discontinued. Hardware builds are DIY — see the GitHub repos for schematics and build guides.
Commercial Use
Commercial use (bars, restaurants, etc.) is not officially supported. You are free to use the software under its open-source license terms, but be aware that it is primarily designed for hobbyist use and comes with no guarantees or official support.
Licensing
All Kegbot software uses free and open-source licenses. Copyright is held by the individual contributors. The Kegbot name is a registered trademark.
History
Kegbot is 22 years old, which is old enough to drink everywhere we know of. At least one Kegbot (and often many more) have been operational since then.
- 2003
Kegbot Invented
Mikey creates Kegbot while bored during grad school. It is the first ever system of its kind, supporting:View the awful first commit →- Pour volume sensing, with an inline flow meter
- Per-drinker access control, with a solenoid valve
- 2005
Kegbot at DEFCON 13
The Kegbot crew rolls out to Las Vegas and throws a party at DEFCON, the annual hacker conference. Nobody hacks it.
Ars Technica coverage →"One the coolest projects I've seen so far at DEFCON was the kegbot, a linux based keg that dispenses beer as long as you have an iButton key. The system keeps track of who you are, how much you're drinking and in team mode- where you rank."
Kegbot in Print
Kegbot is in print! The December edition of Popular Science features a two page spread on Kegbot, featuring a detailed illustration.
Read on Google Books →"Cross a Linux computer with a keg fridge, and you get a tap that knows when you've had enough."
— Paul Wallich, Popular Science, Vol 267, No 6
- 2006
PIC Firmware Opensourced
Our PIC16 firmware, written in a weird but useful language called JAL, is opensourced.
View the commit → Django Migration
Kegbot drops PHP and switches to Django for its backend operations and web frontend.
View the commit →- 2009
Kegbot Learns to Tweet
Back in 2009, when the internet is fun, nerds sat around and figured out how to make different things tweet.
View the commit → Arduino Microcontroller
The Arduino emerges as a cheap and easy-to-use microcontroller platform. Kegbot's flow sensing firmware is ported as we start making the shift.
View the commit →- 2010
REST API
Kegbot gets a proper REST API, supporting new kinds of third-party integrations.
View the commit → - 2011
- 2012
Tablet App Launched
Kegbot goes mobile with a dedicated Android tablet app that can serve as a pour controller and display.
The tablet has a questionable but highly entertaining feature that takes a picture of you as it pours.
- 2014
Kegboard Pro Mini & Kickstarter
We start a small company and run a Kickstarter, producing the Kegbot Pro Mini, our custom controller board.
Gaze upon our dead but successful Kickstarter for some reason → - 2022
- Today
Kegbot Never Dies
Kegbot continues as a volunteer-maintained project with an active community of homebrewers and hackers.