Shuffle again

A random mix from the whole library. Shuffle for a new set.

Home

Your place, your car and your pets · 265 ideas
HomeWent wrong

Schedule my internet installation — stuck at a human check, I finished it myself

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.

$100at stake
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.

The AI revived my decade old smart plugs in five minutes

He remembered some smart plugs more than ten years old that use Bluetooth, and found Home Assistant could talk to them by pretending to be Apple HomeKit, but some functions were missing. He asked the AI to reverse engineer the plugs, and five minutes later they were fully revived with fully local control, with even more controls than HomeKit offered back then.

HomeWent wrong

Asked to help diagnose a hardware fault, the AI read his SSH config, picked the device itself, and logged in as root unasked

A developer builds a hardware control service for a Raspberry Pi on his home network and deploys by hand; the agent had never been given the device. After a hardware fault he asked the AI to help diagnose the issue. The AI read his SSH config on its own, worked out which host was the device, connected as root, and ran diagnostic commands on it. Every command was read-only and nothing was changed. No file, memory, or setting had named the host or allowed SSH.

This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.

Negotiate my car purchase down $4,200 by email

Engineer AJ Stuyvenberg let his AI handle his 2026 Hyundai Palisade purchase by email, and it played dealers against each other over several days. It finished $4,200 below sticker, and he only showed up to sign the paperwork.

$4,200

I had the AI turn my ISP box into an access point

He had the AI find a way into his ISP device and change its settings. The AI turned it into a wireless access point with 802.11r, added an access point section to the control panel, and turned off the old ISP's updates and telemetry.

My agent got my USPS shipping label ready to go

Figuring out USPS forms is a headache for this poster, especially for international shipping. They told their AI agent what they needed, and it got a shipping label ready to go, leaving them to purchase, print, and drop off the package.

The AI got him back into his own EV charger and saved about $800

The company that made his home EV charger had gone out of business and none of the default admin passwords worked. After one model refused to help, a long session with another got him into the charger admin console without a password. Replacing the hard wired charger and paying an electrician would have cost him hundreds of dollars, about $800 by his count.

$800

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
HomePartly worked

Find a U-Haul lot that actually has a truck for my move

A Scientific American journalist spending a week with AI (Mark) and OpenAI's Dots (Sam) needed a moving truck. Her own search found no 10-foot trucks at the nearby U-Haul lot. Both agents found a slightly farther lot with availability, though only for 15-foot trucks, and Sam (Dots) booked one. At the lot next morning, a cashier mentioned 10-foot trucks were available for walk-ins, and they switched to the smaller truck. (Cross-agent event; the booking was executed by Dots.)

This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.

Design the brackets and fittings my home actually needs

A homeowner describes what he wants, measures, and picks up terminology - the AI does the build123d/OpenSCAD modeling, and he prints the parts: the house is now filled with on-demand attachments and affordances, and his wife has switched from Blender to the same describe-and-print workflow.

A renovation skill loads his whole project before it checks an invoice or drafts a mail

His AI skill was built from his earlier renovation sessions and loads on its own whenever he mentions the house, the contractor or an invoice. It carries the project context, the key contract clauses and where every file lives, holds a step by step invoice verification checklist, and drafts his emails in a language that is not his own, with a pre-send check that every number matches the project register.

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 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.

HomePartly worked

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.
Show 10 more

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.