His old 50 euro mini PC now blocks ads at home
He dug out a forgotten 50 euro mini PC and put Linux and Pi-hole on it. With the AI and community lists, it now blocks more than 3 million advertising and telemetry domains.
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Your place, your car and your pets · 265 ideasI built a Firefox add-on that shows extra data on Funda home listings
He used AI to build a Firefox add-on called FunData for Funda, the Dutch home listings site. It shows CheckJePlek data for each rental or purchase home, plus two map layers with land registry and livability data.
AI built his renovation shopping list and found discounts worth about 2,000 dollars
AI built his renovation material list and looked for discounts, saving about 2,000 dollars (watch for fuller sibling telling 50013796, dedupe by case facts at merge).
$2,000
AI did my dad's VA benefits work, saved $10K in legal fees
His dad, a Vietnam veteran, needed help to keep his VA benefits. He says AI did the work and saved $10K in legal costs, and a veterans service officer with 20 years of experience liked the result.
$10,000
The AI edited and printed his storage labels on his Brother printer
He did not feel like editing and printing groups of numbered labels himself on his Brother label printer, so he handed the task to the AI. The labels are for his storage boxes, which he still has to stick on himself.
Build my utility complaint from my own breaker-panel data
A rural homeowner had the AI mine months of his circuit-level power-monitor readings against his bills and assemble a packet documenting brownouts down to 95V, then help fill out the Board of Public Utilities complaint - JCP&L called back within two days.
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.
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.
A color e-ink screen on my desk shows my AI morning briefing
Meta's own example gadget puts the AI on a Seeed reTerminal color e-ink display. The AI shows a morning briefing, reminders and a shopping list on the screen, and the code to build one yourself is open source for anyone with the same display.
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.
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.
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 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.
The AI called Best Buy and narrowed my 12 hour repair window
He had a Best Buy TV repair booked for the next day with a 12 hour window, 7 in the morning to 7 at night. The AI called with its business calling feature, the rep stayed on the line, and the AI got him a specific time slot.
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.
I replaced Google Assistant with my own agent on all my devices
He replaced Google Assistant with an OpenCode setup running GPT Live, connected to all the devices on his mesh. Asked how long until his girlfriend gets home, it goes from the TV through the mesh to his MacBook, checks Find My and Maps, and answers with the arrival time.
The AI built a wind watcher that shuts off my 10 foot Halloween figure
He added a 10 foot Oogie Boogie figure next to Jack and worried strong winds would damage it. He had the AI build a script that watches wind speeds at the airport and turns off the WiFi switch running the fan when the wind passes a set limit.
The AI runs his car and garage from the road, watching the house's power and calendar
The AI in the car, with Gmail and Home Assistant connectors, calculated car charging from home power metrics and calendar, and operated the garage door, lights and air conditioners from the car.
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
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.