The AI set up my van power monitor in five minutes
He took an ESP32 board out of its bag and, with AI setting it up, had it sending his van's battery, charging, and solar data over Bluetooth and MQTT to Home Assistant in 5 minutes.
A random mix from the whole library. Shuffle for a new set.
He took an ESP32 board out of its bag and, with AI setting it up, had it sending his van's battery, charging, and solar data over Bluetooth and MQTT to Home Assistant in 5 minutes.
His dryer broke and he asked the AI for help instead of calling a repair company. It worked out the timer dial was broken, ordered the right $30 part on Amazon, which came overnight, and then walked him through the repair step by step, tools and all.
Smoke from his sauna stove leaked into his home studio. He asked his AI assistant to check the AirGradient sensor in Home Assistant, it told him to leave until the air improved, and it wrote a script that polls particulate levels and pings him on Telegram once it is safe.
A man's clock needed a battery that was not a standard size, and the compartment needed a screwdriver to open. He took a photo of the clock and sent it to the AI, which worked out what battery the clock takes and ordered it from Amazon.
He gave the AI with GPT-6 Astra the measurements of his kids room and what it needed, a divider and a desk for each kid. It built the layout, rendered it in Blender, and made a complete shopping list with the exact furniture models and a ceiling rail for the curtain.
His parents’ ten blinds ran off one dumb radio remote. With a Flipper Zero he recorded the signals, the AI spec’d an ESP32 board to send them, wrote and flashed the software, and designed a printed case; the blinds now open and close at sunrise and sunset with a small web page for overrides. Later the AI built a phone app so his parents can just ask Siri to open or close them.
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).
He used AI to fix a CarPlay bug in his car's Android head unit. He gave it the piece of hardware and it worked out how to talk to it and fix the bug.
He retired his Nest cameras and had the AI (alongside OpenCode) configure Home Assistant and the camera software on the PCs already in his rooms, Linux and Windows alike, so the household computers now double as his in-house camera system, checkable while traveling - no doorbell-cam subscription.
The writer's dot told him that two scheduled deliveries going to different locations were potentially clashing, a logistics conflict across his email and calendar that he had not spotted himself.
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.