The AI flashed his router with open firmware, running the exploit itself
The AI helped flash his router with OpenWrt, including running an exploit itself and instructing the UART steps to load the binary permanently.
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Your place, your car and your pets · 265 ideasThe AI can check my reef tank lights and pumps, but it cannot change them
He built an MCP server that lets the AI check on his reef tank's lights and pumps. It is read only, because he does not trust the AI or himself with the fish.
The AI made the lumber list from photos of our rotted mailbox. The list was not quite right.
A couple found their mailbox on the ground with the post rotted through. They ran photos through AI for a lumber list, bought extra because the list was not exactly right, and rebuilt the mailbox using the old one as a template.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
The AI built his whole home server setup from voice messages on Telegram
Working from a machine an agent had never run well, the AI set up his home server stack over Telegram voice messages: SSH, Docker, Traefik, certificates, split horizon DNS and local models. It also runs his house watching through Frigate and a solar dashboard he can check from his phone.
Research junk removal services and request quotes with my address and photos
AI Understanding's summary of The Verge's hands-on the AI test reports that the agent researched junk removal services and requested quotes directly, using personal information the reviewer provided, including his address and photos of the junk. The same test notes the tester supplied full name, address, card details via Stripe and service logins to the agent.
After two e-bikes were stolen, the AI took control of my garage door
Two e-bikes were stolen after his garage was left open by accident. He set up closing on its own when the door stays open for 15 minutes, and in his own reply on the thread he says he bought a ratgdo control board and the AI wrote and installed the new firmware, so the AI now has full control of the opener and can disable the remotes.
An AI one-liner fixed his home integration's restart bug; he keeps the fork himself now
AI fixed a Home Assistant integration restart bug with a one-liner that works for him, and now maintains his personal fork with the patch against upstream.
He debloated his TV and replaced its assistant with AI
He debloated his Android TV and replaced Google Assistant with AI.
ChoreGig pays his kids in cash on Fridays for chores they claim by phone
He made a pocket money app for his children. Parents post chores with a payout, the kids get them on their phones, and the quickest to tap accept wins the job. The child adds photo evidence, the parents approve it, and the app totals the week's money on a leaderboard, paid in cash on Friday.
The AI set up his Halloween lawn ornaments in Home Assistant in 5 minutes
The AI via MCP built a Home Assistant automation for Halloween lawn ornaments in 5 minutes, with a dashboard override button, and it ran.
The AI watched for his new aquarium thermometer and swapped it into his home system
The AI, given a Home Assistant API key, watched for the new Bluetooth aquarium thermometer he installed, replaced the broken one's entities with it, and verified graphs and automations worked.
The AI fixed my faulty hardware while I was at dinner
His new hardware device was faulty and the community had spent days looking for a fix that did not need a replacement. He plugged it into his computer, asked the AI to fix it, went to dinner, and came back to find it fixed.
The AI now checks Berkeley housing updates against my tracker
He set the AI Tasks up to look up Berkeley housing updates on its own and match what it finds against his own tracker. He called it scary, but useful.
The AI turned open map data into his car's format, a months-long job done in a week
The AI took about a week with light steering to convert OpenStreetMap data into his car's map format, a project that would have taken him months to a year, and he now pulls fresh maps that work on the car.
My agent hit a human check on Uber and could not finish the ride
Peter Yang used Duet's Uber ride skill and gave it the Palace of Fine Arts as his destination. Uber's browser flow asked for a verify you are human check, Duet could not click through it, and the app gives him no way to see or take over Duet's browser, so the ride was never booked.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
The AI talked me through fixing my boiler. It works now.
Her boiler had stopped heating the water. She sent the AI about 15 pictures step by step, followed its instructions to turn it off, switch a few handles and reset the pressure, and the boiler worked again.
My agent patched my home servers against a security hole and kept watch all day
A man who runs his own services at home sent his AI an article about a PHP security hole. The agent patched the services that had a fix, stopped the ones that did not, set up a watch for new fixes, and updated and restarted nearly everything as fixes landed through the day.
An hour with AI moved his home system onto a private network, documented in git
Spent an hour with AI migrating a Home Assistant setup to Tailscale, updating sensors and Pi-hole, and putting it all in one documented git compose file.
The AI turned a spare phone into his nightstand clock from a picture and a prompt
The AI created a nightstand clock app for his spare phone from a picture and a quick prompt, and the phone clock is now in daily use on his nightstand.
The AI rarely gets smart-device tasks right and often says it cannot do them
A reviewer says the AI rarely completes tasks involving his smart devices correctly and often claims it cannot do them at all, which he blames for wrecking his Google smart-home ecosystem.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
I used AI to build a chronology of my life and ancestry. 9,200 entries.
She used AI to create a chronology of her life and her ancestry with about 9,200 entries. She says she can base a memoir, a biography, or a family tree on it, and that the AI is good at coordinating the data even if it cannot write the book.
The AI fixed his WiFi roaming and the channel delay that made calls stutter
The AI configured his network, fixed an incomplete fast-roaming setup and a DFS channel delay issue.
His home agents watch and listen, act on strangers, and remarked on the sunrise
His agents receive continuous video and audio, notice an unrecognized person and take action, and commented on the sunrise while he slept.
It chased my flatmate on email and Instagram until he sent the receipt my oven warranty case needed
Their Ninja oven died with a mystery error code. His AI researched the fault, dealt with the support case, and found the manufacturer needed purchase details, but the oven was a gift from his flatmate's dad. The agent chased the flatmate by email and Instagram DM until he sent the receipt, then sent everything off to the manufacturer. The case was unblocked.
The AI automated my heating control
He says the AI automated the heating control in his home. The post tags his heat pump and his Home Assistant setup.
I built my mechanic friend a car diagnostic app that talks to the AI
His friend keeps his kids cars running and refuses payment, so he found a way to pay him back. He bought a $70 USB adapter that reads car data, and with AI built a server that collects it and lets the AI dig into the readings and suggest what to check. He has tested it on his own 2024 Honda and his friends 2003 GMC truck.
Smoke leaked into my studio. My assistant checked the air and told me to leave.
Smoke from his sauna stove leaked into his home studio. He asked his AI assistant to check the AirGradient sensor in Home Assistant, it told him to leave until the air improved, and it wrote a script that polls particulate levels and pings him on Telegram once it is safe.
The AI turned my designs into 3D files I could print
He needed his designs as 3D files he could print. The AI created the renders in Blender via MCP, then optimized the files for his printer.
School prints go in Slack. Our family calendar fills itself.
A parent of three was copying school, cram school and nursery dates from paper prints, LINE and email into Google Calendar by hand, and nearly missed a field trip lunch. He built Hanamaru: the family posts a photo of a print in Slack, the AI pulls out the dates, and it registers them on the right child's calendar, asking in the thread first when it is not sure.
I told the AI to change the picture on my Samsung TV. It did.
He told the AI to scan his home network for his Samsung Frame TV and replace the picture in its art mode. The AI found the TV and swapped the picture.
The AI built my home remote in half an hour
He had wanted a small Home Assistant remote on an old M5Paper eInk module for 3 years and never built it. The AI did it in half an hour, and the remote now pulls up all his rooms and shows the sensors and buttons he tagged as Remote.
Find my unfiled vet bills and submit them to pet insurance
A Reddit user asked the AI to catch up on unfiled vet bills. The AI searched the email backlog, found five bills totalling $1,504.72, and submitted them to the pet insurer.
$1,505
The AI does the upkeep on my smart home now
He swapped the brain of his house in one evening, moving from Homebridge on an overheating Raspberry Pi with 245 system updates nobody had installed to Home Assistant on his Mac mini. The AI does the upkeep now, and a motion sensor finally works.
The AI watched my WiFi for a week and found the real problem
His home WiFi kept acting up, so he asked the AI to diagnose it. The AI ran a script that monitored everything for a week and pinned the problem on his Google Nest Wifi, and Reddit posts backed that up.
An LLM made his TV switch inputs by itself when his computer plugs in
LLM helped develop in about 10 minutes a tray app that watches for a USB device and switches the TV input via the LG API; he no longer touches the remote.
My kids always wanted two player Mario, so the AI made the mod
His kids have always been disappointed that Super Mario Bros. for the NES does not have two player co-op like the 21st century Mario games. Today he got the AI with Opus 5.5 to make a two player simultaneous mod. You can pick Mario, Luigi, Toad or Peach, and it works on a real NES.
The AI fixed a CarPlay bug in my car's head unit
He used AI to fix a CarPlay bug in his car's Android head unit. He gave it the piece of hardware and it worked out how to talk to it and fix the bug.
My TV app took 30 seconds to open, so I reverse engineered the TV and built my own
His 2019 LG TV has a great screen, but the official Plex app took about 30 seconds just to show the profile picker, because it is really a web page. There is no public native toolkit for the TV, so he rooted a spare set, read the TVs own software with analysis tools and the AI, and built a native Plex client of his own. On the same TV it shows the profile picker in about 3 seconds.
An LLM laid out my furniture in CAD from the boards I had
He gave an LLM the list of boards he had, and it helped lay out the CAD and the cut list for a piece of furniture he wanted, working through OnShape's MCP. He says it got him using hand tools more this week than any week in the last year.
An agent drove his CAD tool from a screenshot and made a printable self-watering cat bin
Astra, driving Fusion from a screenshot, made a parameterized version of a self-watering cat grass bin in one shot and reworked it for printability.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
The AI added my daughter's schedules to my calendar
He scans a whole list with schedules for his daughter and tells the AI to add them as events in his Google Calendar. The AI adds them, and the job is done.
The AI found the old house my aunt lived in. I had looked for years.
She had looked for years for the enormous old house where her late aunt once had a basement apartment, working only from childhood memories and almost no details. The AI found it.
Our kitchen whiteboard is now a family display that updates itself
Josh Kahn replaced his family's kitchen whiteboard with a TRMNL e-ink display that shows the family Apple calendar, a dinner menu calendar, and the weather. GPT helped him build and refine the custom Liquid templates behind the plugins, and the display now stays up to date on its own.
Answer 20,000 Starlink support calls a day by voice agent
XAI says Starlink call centers run on the AI Voice, handling about 20,000 customer calls a day across multiple languages, with roughly 70% resolved without a human and one in four sales calls ending in a purchase. A single agent verifies customers, troubleshoots hardware, issues credits and ships replacement equipment.
My Dot is handling my house purchase in Kyoto, in a language I do not speak
A man buying a house in Kyoto says his AI Dot is handling the whole move in Japanese, a language he does not speak. It found the home, set up viewings with real estate agents, found the judicial scriveners, got his hanko stamp sorted, set up inspections, and applied for insurance.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
He used AI and adb to strip the junk off his Android TV
He connected the AI to his Android TV with adb and took off all the stuff that came preinstalled on it. He says the TV is now left exactly how he wants it.
Identify my discontinued drill battery from a photo and find one on eBay
From a photo, the AI identified the user's discontinued drill battery and found an aftermarket replacement on eBay.
The AI drew a floorplan of his house and now he taps rooms to switch lights and fans
A smart home user had the AI create a vector floorplan of his house, then write a small tool where he could drag icons for his lights and fans into place. He set it up in Home Assistant so he can click a device on the floorplan to turn it on or off.
The AI laid out my kids room and made the full shopping list
He gave the AI with GPT-6 Astra the measurements of his kids room and what it needed, a divider and a desk for each kid. It built the layout, rendered it in Blender, and made a complete shopping list with the exact furniture models and a ceiling rail for the curtain.
Hunt Facebook Marketplace for my new apartment's furniture and message the sellers
During a week-long, move-in agent test, the journalist's the AI (Mark) logged into her Facebook, scoured Marketplace for couches, lamps and rugs, drafted and sent seller messages with her approval, and managed the replies. The hunt ended with a real purchase: an AI-sourced dining table.
Probed the AI’s hidden device capabilities with a self-scan, confirming HomeKit control, geofences,
The self-scan ran 2026-09-23 and confirmed capabilities present on the device that Meta's public documentation doesn't mention.
The AI set up his whole 3D printing hobby and runs the printer from plain English
A new 3D printing fan who did not want to learn the software first had the AI help pick a printer it could drive through its API, then build a small home server between the AI and the machine. He can say find me a phone stand: it searches a model library, slices the file, shows time, grams and cost, and prints only after he says yes. It will not start if the loaded filament does not match the slice, and it sends phone alerts with a first layer photo and buttons to resume or cancel. His partner can request prints through a chat page, which he approves. A firmware update broke the camera setup and the AI found and fixed it.
My new smart bulbs work with Home Assistant after the AI fixed them
His new Kasa bulbs would not talk to Home Assistant, and the problem had sat open for eight months. With the AI talking directly to the devices, they now work, a fix he says he could never have written or fixed on his own.
Fill in my GO Train PRESTO service-guarantee claim
The AI completed and submitted the PRESTO service-guarantee form for a disrupted GO Train trip, the transit agency's compensation route most riders never bother with.
The AI told me to pull a breaker out of my panel right away
He was researching new circuits for a heat pump he is putting in at home, and the AI urged him to remove one specific 60 amp breaker from his electrical panel right away, even though that breaker had given him no trouble. He took the advice and says it saved his house and probably his life.
Car Chaser: hunt used cars with rules stock filters cannot express
Brian Roemmele’s directory-listed Car Chaser bot searches major car listing sites with IF/THEN and OR rules that stock filters cannot express, surfacing cars that match his real trade-offs rather than simple year-and-price boxes. It is an ongoing conditional search, not a one-time query.
The AI brought my old album art display back to life
His old Tuneshine display for album art sat unused because it kept losing its connection and depended on a cloud service. The AI identified the display, ran pin tests, and wrote new firmware, and now a small program on his NAS shows album art or a world clock on it.
The AI set up his hallway lights and motion routine from a plain description
The AI set up a complex Home Assistant routine with lights and motion sensors from a description, working when he walks past the sensor.
Set up a spare Android phone as the agent's own device: The AI
The open-source 'burner' project gives the AI a real spare Android phone (Android 11+). The agent uses the phone's apps exactly like a human would — opening them, tapping, typing, scrolling — and sends the user screenshots, extending its reach to marketplaces and shopping apps with no website or API.
Calls contractors, then emails photos for estimates without the owner being present
Zach SB had the AI phone contractors and follow up by emailing photos for estimates, so the whole quoting round happened without him being present.
My agent found the fault on my combine that a paid mechanic missed
A farmer's John Deere combine had an electronics fault for days and a paid Deere mechanic could not find it. Working with AI, he built a test suite that read the machine's CanBUS messages and the traces from his oscilloscope, and compared both against a second working combine. They found two faulty controllers and the machine runs again.
A 50 euro mini PC, Pi-hole and the AI took the ads off my whole house
Days earlier he set up Pi-hole on a 50 euro mini PC and it removed ads across his whole home, with Tailscale so he could carry it in his pocket. In this second part, all built in one Sunday afternoon with AI’s help, he added an app that knows when he is home without asking for his location, his own VPN using his home IP, and DNS privacy so his internet provider cannot see every site he visits.
€50
The AI wiped my rooted TV setup while installing a new launcher
He asked the AI to install the Free My TV launcher on his rooted LG TV. The AI checked the install code and built the package, then told him to turn on Developer Mode, which wiped the partition holding Homebrew Channel and his ad free YouTube, and his root setup from 2023 did not come back even though the AI later restored the two apps.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
His family picked the warm theme the AI sketched and the AI built into their home app
The AI mocked up theme options and the AI implemented the warm theme in his HomeOS app, which his family chose and uses.
His discount monitor saved about $2,000 on his renovation project
A man doing a home renovation uses a discount monitor alongside shopping list alerts and 3D models of the project. He says the monitor on its own saved him about $2,000 on the renovation.
$2,000one time
My cat feeder clips cost $0 a month now instead of $5
His cat feeder camera charged $5 a month to store motion clips. He had the AI reverse engineer the feed login so his home server could pull the video, spot the cats, cut clips, save them to R2, and play them in an iOS app, all for $0 a month.
$5a month
An agent set up his 100 home sensors and his pepper harvest was his biggest yet
A man let an agent live on his home network and finally get his hundred or so sensors and smart devices configured and talking to each other. This year he set up garden sensors with its help, tied soil, rain and sunlight readings into automated watering, and had by far the largest hot pepper harvest he has ever had.
The AI spotted the tricks in my housing association's letters
He has had a complaint running with his housing association for months, and the association has missed legal deadlines and blamed other departments. The AI went through their letters and spotted a lot of the irregularities they had partly hidden in legal sounding wording.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
Turn my existing PCs into a subscription-free home camera network
He retired his Nest cameras and had the AI (alongside OpenCode) configure Home Assistant and the camera software on the PCs already in his rooms, Linux and Windows alike, so the household computers now double as his in-house camera system, checkable while traveling - no doorbell-cam subscription.
$10a month
Turned a water-pipe cleaning notice photo into calendar alerts and ongoing monitoring
Kilsonmoon sent the AI a photo of a neighborhood water-pipe cleaning notice: The AI identified when his street would be cleaned, added it to his calendar, set a messenger reminder for the day before, and relayed the precautions — close the valve, avoid running the washing machine. It also found the full schedule on the water utility's website and registered ongoing monitoring so future notices trigger automatic alerts.
The AI designed my bookshelves and cabinets. Cutting lists in minutes, not days.
He had been designing wooden bookshelves and cutlery cabinets in FreeCAD and finding it hard work. He used AI to make the designs and send the results to FreeCAD, and got fully parametric designs and cutting lists in minutes rather than days.
His agent found and reserved him a parking spot in San Francisco today
A man reports that he used his agent that day to find and reserve a parking spot in San Francisco. He had earlier used AI to gather his AWS invoices for a reimbursement.
The AI one-shot a dashboard for his air conditioning system
The AI one-shot a custom web dashboard to control his Samsung AC system.
The AI built a script that sends my delivery alerts to Homey
His weekly package delivery came with no delivery notice, and the couriers did not ring the bell. The AI built a small API script that uses the tracking link and signals his Homey, so he gets the alerts he wants.
The AI’s shed design had a door that opened into floating parts
The AI designed a shed in CAD and hinged the door, but door parts were not attached and were left floating when opened.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
He can't code. The AI built the plugin that switches his server.
He built a Homebridge plugin with AI that lets him turn his server on and off from Apple HomeKit for free. He says he does not know the first thing about coding.
A status monitor he built with AI watches his home tech
A ready made dashboard only shows what the maker thinks matters. His own status monitor, built with AI on a 10.3 inch second screen, shows him when an n8n workflow, a hoster or his lawn mower socket fails, with 53 tests included.
The AI identified a clock's odd battery from a photo and ordered it
He sent the AI a photo of a clock, it worked out what non-standard battery it took and ordered it from Amazon for him.
The AI changes my Home Assistant for me when I ask, dashboards included
He runs the AI on his PC with ha-mcp on the same machine, so the AI can reach into Home Assistant and make the changes he asks for. He keeps it on his own PC only, and says a new dashboard is done as soon as he describes it.
The AI cleaned up my Android TV and replaced its launcher
He gave the AI his TV model number. It found the TV on his wifi, removed 25 Xiaomi packages and wrote a new launcher, so the TV now looks like an Apple TV.
He built a free tool that picks the right drawer insert and writes the cut list
After measuring 17 kitchen drawers by hand and still cutting one insert wrong, he built a free tool with AI. You snap photos of a drawer, enter five measurements, and it checks 46 Rev-A-Shelf insert sizes, picks the top three fits, and gives the exact cut sizes.
The AI fixed my printer and left a script to renew its certificate
His HP Color LaserJet Pro M252dw from around 2016 refused to print because its certificate had expired, and searching Google did not help. The AI talked him through the fix, then wrote a script that made a locally signed certificate, uploaded it through the printer's web page, and saved the script in his personal knowledge base, all in about 15 to 20 minutes.
I fixed my 15 year old dryer with AI on my phone
His 15 year old dryer broke on Saturday. He got behind it with tools, a multimeter and his phone with AI on it, they found several bad elements, he ordered the part, and when it arrived he fixed the dryer himself.
He became president of a broke condo association and built the system that pulled it out of debt
As the only financially literate owner, he ended up president of a condo association with negative money in the bank. He fired the management company, then built an owner portal with AI that handles accounting going back years, dues tracking, bills, payments, compliance and vendor records. The association is out of debt, and the whole thing runs on free tier services plus a domain.
The AI helped me unlock port mirroring on my EdgeRouter X
He used AI to test and document the unsupported switch controller in his own EdgeRouter X. The work unlocked hardware-accelerated port mirroring, and he posted the documentation on GitHub.
The AI spent 20 minutes on a calendar event that takes me 30 seconds
He asked the AI to set up a recurring Google Calendar event for his kids dance lessons. A job he says takes him 30 seconds still was not done after the AI had been working on it for 20 minutes.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
Windows fought my monitors and sound for 10 years. The AI fixed it in an afternoon.
His ultrawide and BenQ monitors plus a 7.1 receiver gave Windows a decade of phantom displays, lost windows, G-Sync stutter and audio sent to the wrong place. He explained the problems to the AI, which scanned his connected devices and log files, found problems he did not know about, and built him a utility with display and audio modes on hotkeys that keeps Dolby Atmos on and his mic volume right.
Run my buddy’s sprinklers off the weather and cut his water bill
A user set an AI running his friend’s sprinkler system based on weather patterns, and reported big savings on the water bill. The system waters when the forecast says it matters, not on a dumb timer.
The AI cleaned up my kid's transcript and the upload went through
His kid's transcript was not going through, so as a last try he asked the AI to make a cleaner version of it. The cleaned version uploaded fine.
The AI runs my Home Assistant and writes its automations
After the AI started managing his home systems, he gave it control of Home Assistant too. It proved good at writing automations and doing the setup, and he later moved Home Assistant into a Docker image.
A photo of a clock was enough for his agent to find the odd battery it needed and order it
A man's clock needed a battery that was not a standard size, and the compartment needed a screwdriver to open. He took a photo of the clock and sent it to the AI, which worked out what battery the clock takes and ordered it from Amazon.
I asked the AI to make an agent for my wife’s iMessages and got a watcher
He tried AI on his Mac and asked it to make an agent for his wife’s iMessages. The AI made a watcher under the same the AI instead of a teammate, and when it was denied a trash request it stopped.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
Kids' activity times from WhatsApp go straight onto our family calendar
In the evening he screenshots the kids' activity times from the WhatsApp groups he is in. The AI puts them on the family calendar for him.
Free the AI designed a replacement coat hanger joint he printed in 10 minutes
Free the AI produced an OpenSCAD file he converted to STL and 3D printed a replacement coat hanger joint in 10 minutes, part now in use.
The AI reads my school email and flags only what is about my kids
He set up an AI routine that reads all his school email and archives anything that is not about his kids. Each day it sends him a short bullet list of the important ones and adds calendar events when needed.
The AI writes the code for parts he 3D prints, a compost bin ring in 60 minutes
A hobbyist has the AI or the AI write ForgeCAD code that creates 3D models he prints. A ring to hold the bag in his compost bin went from a multi week project, learning Fusion 360 in spare hours, to a good prototype in 60 minutes, and a cover for his overheating doorbell took a photo of the doorbell, dimensions from the maker’s site and 3 or 4 prints to get right.
His agent got quotes from 10 repair shops and tried to negotiate the price
ESPM professor Wilson Silva had his AI agent research ten auto repair shops, send them photos and videos of his car, request quotes and rank the options while he worked. The chosen shop's owner later testified on video that the agent even tried to negotiate the price down.
The AI worked out which IKEA furniture would fill the empty space in my room
He fed the furniture he already owns into a Blender model of his room through an MCP link. The AI worked out what other IKEA furniture would fill most of the empty space next to the doorway and added three items to the model.
The AI replaced Home Assistant in my house and my camper
Over one weekend he replaced Home Assistant completely in both his house and his camper, with AI doing most of the work in the background. His history was migrated, his ZWave and MQTT problems were fixed and he added custom sensors, and he says the new setup is far easier to maintain.
The AI pulled my demand letter together from the whole email history
He is in a long dispute with a remodeling company that signed an agreement to pay him back for work it did not finish, then paid nothing since May. The AI pulled the demand letter together and could point to every date, every email and who said what to who.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
Every idea is a real post from someone who tried it, summarized in our words, with a link to the original. App names are swapped for plain words.