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.
A random mix from the whole library. Shuffle for a new set.
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Your place, your car and your pets · 265 ideasThe AI set up my van power monitor in five minutes
He took an ESP32 board out of its bag and, with AI setting it up, had it sending his van's battery, charging, and solar data over Bluetooth and MQTT to Home Assistant in 5 minutes.
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 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.
Sell my car end to end, from listing to licensing paperwork
The AI sold the user's car end to end: listing it, handling buyers, collecting CarMax and Carvana quotes, and preparing the licensing paperwork.
He built his kid a one screen app that picks the fastest way to school each morning
His kid’s school run means two trains or a bus, with the right choice spread across three apps. He built an Android app with AI that pulls live train times, wait times, disruptions and traffic into one screen and recommends which way to go.
I got the AI working with Google Home to turn my lights on
He worked through the setup steps to link the AI with Google Home, turning on activity history and letting it connect to his home. After that, he could ask the AI to turn on his lights and it worked.
The AI designed his fan controller circuit, board, and software. The boards are ordered and still untested.
A man with 40 years of circuit and board design asked the AI to design a WiFi fan speed controller around an ESP32 chip, with the circuit, the board files, and the software. The first design took about 15 or 20 minutes. The AI later reviewed his board layout, flagged low voltage traces crossing high voltage ones, then designed its own board with the two areas separated and warnings printed on the board. He bought the parts himself. The boards are on their way and have not been powered up yet.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
The AI modelled his broken microwave handle from photos; the print works perfectly
Gave the AI photos of a broken microwave handle part against a 1-inch grid, it made a 3D model, and his test print works perfectly instead of buying two 30 dollar parts.
$60
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.
I built a bark logger to prove the neighbor's dog barks for hours
One of several tools he built with AI: a program that listens for the neighbor's dog, detects the barking and logs it to a spreadsheet, so he has a record before he complains.
A local model watches his cameras for open garages, cat sick and thirsty plants
A local LLM in Home Assistant checks camera images for garage door open, cat vomit and plants, notifies him and pauses the cleaning robot schedule, replacing flaky sensors.
The AI can run my house lights through Homey. It is slow, but it works.
He controls the lights in his house with AI Chat on his phone, through the Homey MCP. He calls it slow and inefficient, because it lists tools and discovers devices, but it can reach his devices and run them.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
The AI made a 3D print file from my photos and I printed the bracket
He needed a bracket to hold a small LCD above a circuit board. He sent the AI photos of the board and the display, the AI made a 3D print file, and he printed the bracket at the library.
Remote-start my car and watch its battery from chat
A user built a custom the AI skill that remote-starts their car, reports EV battery level and monitors charging status from any chat. They published the skill because nobody else had made one for it.
I used AI to build a piano game for my nephew. He loved it.
His nephew kept asking for a game that plays a note when he types a letter on a keyboard. He used AI to build it and put it online, and his nephew loved it.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.