A random mix from the whole library. Shuffle for a new set.
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.
He put a camera on his rental property boiler and uses AI to read the screen and zone lights, texting him when anything goes outside normal operating parameters.
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.
He says the AI automated the heating control in his home. The post tags his heat pump and his Home Assistant setup.
A Hubitat owner built a free app that connects his home hub to the AI. He asks the AI if the garage door is closed, tells it to set the house to Night mode, and has it write spoken alert rules, like warning him when a window stays open while the heat is on.
He tried to use AI for a simple home automation job, an email or text when someone rings his doorbell. He calls it a complete failure.
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.
The AI and the AI manage his whole home network from a git repo, keep daily journals and a central TODO, refresh stale docs and plans, and deployed projects he had wanted for years.
The AI configured his network, fixed an incomplete fast-roaming setup and a DFS channel delay issue.
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 Verge's reviewer had a Dot schedule a new internet provider installation; it navigated most of the signup and even found a $100 promotional discount buried in deleted email. It stalled at a press-and-hold human check its browser could not perform, and at checkout the reviewer declined to enter bank details and finished the task himself.
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.
He built a household app with AI that holds the family calendar, shopping list, chore rotas, house documents, and push notifications. The family uses it daily, an update in the thread says it survived a move to a new host with its 147 releases intact, and he calls it probably the best thing he has made with AI.
The third case in the same comment: he had the AI call three local companies to get quotes for a fence at his property. Quote gathering for home work normally means three rounds of calls, messages and waiting; his agent made the calls itself. Prices are not stated in the comment.
In the same week as his treadmill buy, a SpaceX launch engineer says his AI got several quotes for new car tires, paid for them, and scheduled the install. No prices or shop names were shown.
Over four weeks of evenings, an AI agent wrote the firmware, the live web chart, the Node-RED automation and the enclosure CAD for his radar stair light, driving a live Fusion 360 session through its scripting API. He reviewed, printed and measured, and the second half of the video lists what the agent got confidently wrong, including a radome gap that landed on exactly a quarter wavelength.
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.
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.
Josh Dubowsky gave the AI access to his whole home folder: it inventoried 9,412 files, proposed a plan, and — only after his approval — sorted 312 problem files into six plain-language folders, renamed files readably and deleted duplicates he approved. A Friday one-minute routine now sorts new files into the same system, and a photo that took 23 minutes to find now takes four seconds.
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.
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.