A parent had the AI write firmware that turns his children's unsupported second-generation Yoto players into Audiobookshelf clients. The AI handled flashing, log reading, and fixes while he did the physical button presses, and the firmware is public on GitHub.
Noah gave his AI Q its own Google Voice number so it can text his partner directly. With his permission, if she asks something within reason the AI answers for him: it can tell her whether his phone battery is dead, or share his location, because he has given the AI location access. His standing policy is that anything the AI sends as him is drafted for his approval first.
Eleanor Konik writes that she hates requesting books through the county library website, so she told the AI to find books about chess aimed at a bright 6-year-old; the AI picked titles and requested them using her library account. A few days later the county emailed that the books were available, and she picked them up (her post also shares an AI invite code).
He had the AI put together a big brief on summer day camps that take 5 year olds within a 15 minute drive in rush hour of his zip code, with one Spanish immersion camp. He read the options, checked drive times and the camp sites himself, and says the three camps they went with were great and close.
The AI produced a thirteen-page strategic assessment of Fulton's father's retirement community. Its pickleball court count was verified from satellite photos — eight dedicated courts, checked, in his words, from orbit.
A fellow parent pointed him to the Tilt Parenting podcast, which has more than 500 episodes. He told his second brain in an AI app to search the archive for episodes relevant to his situation, and it picked 29 episodes, saved their transcripts, and wrote him a brief on what each one could teach him.
Replying in the prompt thread, he says the AI hosts and updates their family dashboard on its own. Attached to it is a store: he set up a Bluetooth NFC reader beside it that works like a card scanner. The kids scan a card to see their point totals, and when they buy something the points come off their total. They can check a balance, move points between them, and take points out as cash. He says it has been a huge hit.
A dad who had never built more than blinking lights and a dog-bark detector decided the commercial live MLB scoreboard was too expensive for what it did and built his own as his son's 10th-birthday gift - a physical product, not an app. Over months of nights and weekends with AI/the AI and the AI he went from concept to web preview to a parts list and a 3D-printed case screwed into the back; the finished board shows live MLB and NFL scores, pulls his son's own baseball games and practice schedule from GameChanger, runs arcade games, and has a quiet mode that shuts it down after bedtime.
His son is into Rubik’s cube competitions. Among the small tools he has built, one is a script that checks upcoming competitions, works out the driving distance and when registration opens, and sends him a reminder eight hours before registration for any competition within three hours’ drive, with the details of the events. He does not say yet whether it has caught one.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
A parent says the AI goes through his kids' Google Classroom and tracks their homework in every class: due dates, missing work and scores. It then sends the kids a daily email on how they are doing, with a daily plan to stay on top of their work.
He built a tool that reads the emails from his kid school and activities, swimming, music classes and scouts. It adds everything to their shared calendar, sends a WhatsApp message the day before reminding them what to pack in his school bag, and tells them what is on the lunch menu so they do not cook the same thing for dinner. He says the morning scramble is gone and the head space is back.
Eric's daughter and her friend needed lodging for a music festival in Europe during her study abroad. His Dot, Jarvis, priced four places and annotated each with whether the walk back from the shuttle has streetlights after 10 p.m. When a provider replied in French, Jarvis read it, updated the comparison and said what changed: one rental ruled out, another cheaper but with a longer, uphill, unlit walk home. Eric finished the checkout himself.
One poster set up a single AI agent on WhatsApp for their three-person family, with each member using it for different tasks and the agent surfacing relevant information proactively before being asked. The whole setup runs on one $200/month AI subscription.
He let his daughter chat out loud with AI to make a game, and the AI gave her small kid sized coding lessons along the way. They put the game on his Raspberry Pi box with an Arduino joystick, so she can play it whenever she wants.
On a Tuesday, Fulton's the AI warned him that Sunday would open near freezing, connecting a forecast swing to his calendar without being asked. The practical point was jackets for the children before their Sunday activity.
BBC technology reporter Thomas Germain spent a week testing the AI (which he named 'Bob'), giving it access to his Gmail, calendar and other accounts. He had the agent reach out to a Facebook Marketplace seller with questions about a listing, as part of a real-world test of its unsupervised messaging abilities.
Her wedding site on Joy worked until the platform disabled SSO and she could no longer edit it - mid-planning. She rebuilt the whole thing herself with AI from her own requirements list: password-protected bridal-party and admin sections and direct RSVPs, replacing the platform entirely.