The story behind the cart.
Kristi Cart is named after my mom. The first one was a Mother's Day gift — a hand-assembled cartridge that turned her wine fridge into a real curing chamber instead of a humidity guessing game.
She mentioned, casually, that her Boveda packs weren't really keeping things consistent. She was opening jars, checking RH, swapping packs, opening again. The same routine cure-curious folks all over the internet describe. It looked like a problem worth solving with a sensor and a small computer.
Two months of prototyping later, the third cartridge was running in three different homes — Mom's, a friend's, and mine — and people kept asking how to get one.
Why it matters
Curing is the difference between “harvested cannabis” and finished flower. Done right, terpenes deepen, harshness fades, the smoke smooths out. Done at the wrong humidity, you get mold or brittle bud that's lost its character.
Most existing options are either passive (Boveda) or fully integrated and expensive (Cannatrol's ~$1,000 countertop unit). Kristi Cart is the active-but-modular middle: it turns the wine fridge you already have (or can get for ~$170 on Amazon) into a precision climate chamber for a fraction of the integrated-product price.
Why we build it this way
- Open firmware — code is auditable and updateable by the owner. No subscription, no walled garden.
- Modular hardware — replaceable parts. Snap-fit lid, standard USB-C, off-the-shelf sensor.
- Local-first — phone dashboard runs on your home WiFi, not in our cloud. Your cure data stays at your house.
- Built one at a time, by hand — for now. Each unit gets calibrated and bench-tested before it ships.
Where this goes
Same hardware can run cigar humidors, charcuterie chambers, mushroom fruiting tents, seed storage — anywhere VPD matters. The cure rig is the first market; the platform is wider.
If you want one of the first batch: reserve yours. If you want to ask a question first: hi@kristicart.com.