The AI built a home screen widget showing my kid's school lunch menu
While he was doing the dishes on Sunday, the AI made him a home screen widget that shows his kid's school lunch menu. He says he never would have made it himself.
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Your place, your car and your pets · 265 ideasMy agent hit a human check on Uber and could not finish the ride
Peter Yang used Duet's Uber ride skill and gave it the Palace of Fine Arts as his destination. Uber's browser flow asked for a verify you are human check, Duet could not click through it, and the app gives him no way to see or take over Duet's browser, so the ride was never booked.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
We built a local family assistant that runs our calendar and reminders
His family of three uses a local assistant called Sadie, built on a home server so their calendar, photos and messages stay off cloud services. Sadie runs their shared calendar, sends location based reminders, answers texts and emails, searches family photos, and sorts household mail, flagging bills and school deadlines.
Watch Autotrader and alert me to mispriced supercars
MindStudio tested an AI monitor that watches Autotrader listings and flags cars priced well under market. Scheduled checks deliver deal alerts to Telegram, and a continuity setting stops it re-alerting on the same listing.
He debloated his TV and replaced its assistant with AI
He debloated his Android TV and replaced Google Assistant with AI.
Measure my space, size the bookshelves, and order them from Home Depot today
The AI worked out bookshelf sizes from the user's space, selected matching units, and ordered them from Home Depot for same-day fulfilment.
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.
I linked the AI to my smart home hub and talk to my house
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.
I 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.
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.
He used AI and adb to strip the junk off his Android TV
He connected the AI to his Android TV with adb and took off all the stuff that came preinstalled on it. He says the TV is now left exactly how he wants it.
Agents implemented 6 ways to update a smart device, on real hardware
AI coding agents implemented six ways to update a Matter device on real hardware.
The AI talked me through fixing my boiler. It works now.
Her boiler had stopped heating the water. She sent the AI about 15 pictures step by step, followed its instructions to turn it off, switch a few handles and reset the pressure, and the boiler worked again.
The 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.
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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.
The AI reads my 7 school WhatsApp groups and posts only what is about our daughter
A father set the AI up to read 7 school WhatsApp groups twice a day on school days and post only the items about his daughter into a private chat he shares with his wife. It reads PDFs and images too, and caught his name on a volunteer roster he would have missed.
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 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
The AI turned my designs into 3D files I could print
He needed his designs as 3D files he could print. The AI created the renders in Blender via MCP, then optimized the files for his printer.
He became president of a broke condo association and built the system that pulled it out of debt
As the only financially literate owner, he ended up president of a condo association with negative money in the bank. He fired the management company, then built an owner portal with AI that handles accounting going back years, dues tracking, bills, payments, compliance and vendor records. The association is out of debt, and the whole thing runs on free tier services plus a domain.
I asked the AI to make an agent for my wife’s iMessages and got a watcher
He tried AI on his Mac and asked it to make an agent for his wife’s iMessages. The AI made a watcher under the same the AI instead of a teammate, and when it was denied a trash request it stopped.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
Sell my house to friends on an AI-written contract
Mentioned in passing in a thread about an unlisted offer: the sellers' friends bought their house as-is on a contract the buyer had the AI write up - no agents, no lawyers - and the title company told them it was the smoothest deal she had ever handled.
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.
Make my Canon photo printer work with Linux
A commenter in a hardware reverse-engineering thread says he had the AI develop a working Bluetooth CUPS driver for his Canon Zoemini 2 mini photo printer. Canon only supports the printer from smartphones, so the driver made it usable from his Linux machine.
Research junk removal services and request quotes with my address and photos
AI Understanding's summary of The Verge's hands-on the AI test reports that the agent researched junk removal services and requested quotes directly, using personal information the reviewer provided, including his address and photos of the junk. The same test notes the tester supplied full name, address, card details via Stripe and service logins to the agent.
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.
The AI put the school special days on our family calendar
He had the AI add all the special days from the Pittsburgh Public Schools calendar into the family calendar. It was a win, but the school calendar itself had errors, and he spent 30 minutes working out which day was wrong.
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.
My agent found the fault on my combine that a paid mechanic missed
A farmer's John Deere combine had an electronics fault for days and a paid Deere mechanic could not find it. Working with AI, he built a test suite that read the machine's CanBUS messages and the traces from his oscilloscope, and compared both against a second working combine. They found two faulty controllers and the machine runs again.
The AI helped me unlock port mirroring on my EdgeRouter X
He used AI to test and document the unsupported switch controller in his own EdgeRouter X. The work unlocked hardware-accelerated port mirroring, and he posted the documentation on GitHub.
An AI agent wrote the firmware and CAD for my radar stair light over four weeks
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.
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
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.
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.
Built a $600 family calendar display for $80
His wife wanted a Skylight wall calendar, the kind that costs about $600. He built his own for $80 on a 32 inch smart TV, with the family calendar, chores, meals, the home cameras, and voice control, and says AI did most of the building.
$520
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.
Manage my bulldog's vet care — appointments, budgets and research
A dog owner shows app screenshots of her AI 'Sir Gilbert' helping manage her bulldog Omar's care: scheduling and planning vet appointments, budgeting during a food-allergy trial, creating a budget for anticipated vet bills, and researching local veterinary dentists suited to a flat-faced breed. She frames it as offloading the scheduling, budgeting and service-finding so she can focus on her dog and baby.
The AI added my daughter's schedules to my calendar
He scans a whole list with schedules for his daughter and tells the AI to add them as events in his Google Calendar. The AI adds them, and the job is done.
The AI runs my Home Assistant and writes its automations
After the AI started managing his home systems, he gave it control of Home Assistant too. It proved good at writing automations and doing the setup, and he later moved Home Assistant into a Docker image.
I photographed a clock and my agent ordered the right batteries for it
The same man took a photo of a clock this morning and asked the AI to buy replacement batteries. The AI identified the clock from the photo, found its instruction manual, worked out which batteries it takes, and ordered them from Amazon.
After two e-bikes were stolen, the AI took control of my garage door
Two e-bikes were stolen after his garage was left open by accident. He set up closing on its own when the door stays open for 15 minutes, and in his own reply on the thread he says he bought a ratgdo control board and the AI wrote and installed the new firmware, so the AI now has full control of the opener and can disable the remotes.
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.
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.
I used AI to build a chronology of my life and ancestry. 9,200 entries.
She used AI to create a chronology of her life and her ancestry with about 9,200 entries. She says she can base a memoir, a biography, or a family tree on it, and that the AI is good at coordinating the data even if it cannot write the book.
The AI one-shot a dashboard for his air conditioning system
The AI one-shot a custom web dashboard to control his Samsung AC system.
The AI rebuilt my 20 years of address history from my email
He needed his address history for a co-op application and had struggled to dig out leases from a decade or more back. The AI searched more than 20 years of his Gmail and built a spreadsheet listing his addresses back to 2006, with links to the emails behind each date and a flag on the dates that were only a guess.
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.
Luna finished the doorbell panel software that answers calls and shows the video
Luna finished an ESP32 SIP client for an in-wall touch panel that rings when someone is at his doorbell and lets him answer calls and see video.
The AI built our family dashboard. It only shows the bins on bin night.
He built a home dashboard with AI that pulls a dozen sources into one wall screen for the whole family. It shows the shared calendar, weather warnings, solar and battery levels, car charge and bin days, and it only brings things up when they matter, like bins out tonight or a frost warning.
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.
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.
My agent patched my home servers against a security hole and kept watch all day
A man who runs his own services at home sent his AI an article about a PHP security hole. The agent patched the services that had a fix, stopped the ones that did not, set up a watch for new fixes, and updated and restarted nearly everything as fixes landed through the day.
An LLM laid out my furniture in CAD from the boards I had
He gave an LLM the list of boards he had, and it helped lay out the CAD and the cut list for a piece of furniture he wanted, working through OnShape's MCP. He says it got him using hand tools more this week than any week in the last year.
An app built with AI reads his solar panels and sets his battery charging each night
He built an app with AI that reads his solar inverter and batteries, forecasts tomorrow's solar generation and household use, and emails him a report. It sets the battery charge level for the overnight cheap tariff based on the forecast.
List my house for rent, answer inquiries, and fill it in 14 days at asking rent
The AI listed the user's house on Facebook Marketplace, answered renter inquiries, scheduled viewings, and the home rented in 14 days at the full asking rent.
The AI designed a replacement bottle cap and the 3D print works perfectly
His young daughter lost the small cap from a water bottle she likes a lot. He asked the AI to design a replacement, printed it in 3D, and says it works perfectly.
His agent found and reserved him a parking spot in San Francisco today
A man reports that he used his agent that day to find and reserve a parking spot in San Francisco. He had earlier used AI to gather his AWS invoices for a reimbursement.
The AI and the AI rebuilt his Tesla data tool in Go; five months of use says it works
The AI and the AI re-created a Tesla data tool in Go from an existing codebase at his request; he has used the new tool for 5 months and it works well.
The AI replaced Home Assistant in my house and my camper
Over one weekend he replaced Home Assistant completely in both his house and his camper, with AI doing most of the work in the background. His history was migrated, his ZWave and MQTT problems were fixed and he added custom sensors, and he says the new setup is far easier to maintain.
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.
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 told the AI to change the picture on my Samsung TV. It did.
He told the AI to scan his home network for his Samsung Frame TV and replace the picture in its art mode. The AI found the TV and swapped the picture.
The AI on the car's data bus killed the dashboard and safety systems while moving
The AI put on the CAN bus of cars stomped frames and killed the gauge cluster and traction and stability systems while the car was moving.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
His home agents watch and listen, act on strangers, and remarked on the sunrise
His agents receive continuous video and audio, notice an unrecognized person and take action, and commented on the sunrise while he slept.
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.
Answer 20,000 Starlink support calls a day by voice agent
XAI says Starlink call centers run on the AI Voice, handling about 20,000 customer calls a day across multiple languages, with roughly 70% resolved without a human and one in four sales calls ending in a purchase. A single agent verifies customers, troubleshoots hardware, issues credits and ships replacement equipment.
Set up a 'wand' bridge so the AI can act on his Mac
A machine-learning user built a bridge ('wand') letting his AI act on his Mac remotely from his phone. The AI reads his Terminal, reports training-run stats like epoch, loss, and accuracy, and can lock the machine on request.
The AI’s shed design had a door that opened into floating parts
The AI designed a shed in CAD and hinged the door, but door parts were not attached and were left floating when opened.
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.
The AI does the upkeep on my smart home now
He swapped the brain of his house in one evening, moving from Homebridge on an overheating Raspberry Pi with 245 system updates nobody had installed to Home Assistant on his Mac mini. The AI does the upkeep now, and a motion sensor finally works.
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.