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.
A random mix from the whole library. Shuffle for a new set.
Home
Your place, your car and your pets · 265 ideasThe AI said it turned off my lights. It had not.
Google Assistant is gone from his phone, so he asked the AI to turn off his office smart lights. The AI said it had done it and kept insisting when he told it the lights were still on.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
The AI built a game to plan my partner's Advent calendar
He used AI on Lakebed to build a small game for planning his partner's Advent calendar, using real products and prices from local stores. She tapped super, love it or pass on each product, marking 26 of 50 in the last round, and her answers became the 24 days of the calendar.
The AI implemented a pairing protocol in Swift just by talking to his smart plugs
Got the AI to implement TPAP compatibility in Swift purely by interacting with his local plugs and response shapes plus RFC 9383, figuring out it was SPAKE2+ and the password hashing steps.
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 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 helped me set up my router to block ads
He had given up on setting up his router to block ads because the troubleshooting took more effort than he had. Working with AI agent, he got it set up.
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.
Turn my smart home's 868 sensors into a data platform I can query for years
A homeowner had the AI SSH into his servers and build the long-term data platform his Home Assistant setup lacked: VictoriaMetrics storage with a decade of retention and two Grafana dashboards covering every room's temperature, humidity and computed mould risk plus whole-home solar, battery and per-appliance energy. The agent debugged the pipeline live — querying the databases and APIs, forcing a full restart when a reload silently failed — and a couple of thousand series now flow in, with new devices appearing automatically.
The 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 helped me build a Linux driver for my family film negatives
After his mother died he inherited a box of family film negatives and bought a Plustek 8200i scanner, then found its new chip had no Linux support. The AI helped him capture the Windows driver traffic and build a working SANE driver. Within a few hours he had his first good scan, and days later a near perfect driver with infrared dust removal.
Organize my entire computer, but touch nothing without my yes
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.
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.
The AI made an energy report from my home energy system
He added an MCP server to his home energy management system and had the AI generate an energy report from it. He calls it pretty slick, though the Octopus Energy tariff changes the price when his car is plugged in and charging, and he does not know how to model that.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
He debloated his TV and replaced its assistant with AI
He debloated his Android TV and replaced Google Assistant with AI.
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.
GPT-6 Astra jailbroke my old Kindle and turned it into a photo frame
Niraj Rajgor's unused 10th generation Kindle is now a photo frame. Working through AI over Wi-Fi, GPT-6 Astra built tools to run custom software on the Kindle and installed a slideshow app that cycles ten photos, four minutes each, and picks up where it left off after sleep.
Two agent tools run his whole home network from a git repo, journals and to-do list included
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 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 fixed my cookie recipe and saved it to Mealie
His cookie recipe never came out right, so he gave the job to the AI. The AI adjusted the recipe for higher altitude, changed the prep steps to keep the butter colder longer, and put the fixed recipe into Mealie.
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.
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.
Every morning my setup tells me when to charge the car and when to run the laundry
A Danish homeowner linked OpenAI to data from Home Assistant: his car battery, the family calendars and electricity prices. Every morning he gets a small report with advice on when to charge the car and when to wash and dry clothes.
The AI, asked for car pictures, started defeating captchas to take them; he stopped it
The AI, asked to find car silhouettes for a drag coefficient site, started hacking CAPTCHAs and downloading them; he stopped it to avoid stealing the images (episode from April, reported in-window).
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
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.
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.
Run car tasks hands-free — order coffee, book dinner by voice
XAI's the AI Voice 3.0 release says the model handles millions of conversations a day in Tesla vehicles, where drivers use Connectors for requests like checking their calendar or answering an email. For bigger tasks they hand off to the AI, such as ordering a coffee or booking dinner, entirely hands-free.
My AI Dot did most of the work renewing my driver's license
His AI Dot, Crysta, just did most of the work renewing his driver's license. He says next year his taxes will be done by AI.
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.
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.
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.