miakappIdeas
“Close the shutters every day at 8 pm”? A fifteen-dollar timer does that. Your agent writes code: it reads the weather and your calendar, learns the signals of a remote, explores a manufacturer’s API and designs a screen for each person in the house.
Here is something to start with. The only real limit is what you think of asking.
A good request says what you want, the exceptions and for whom. The bare minimum looks like this:
“Close the shutters at sunset, unless someone is still in the conservatory.”
The requests below go much further: they combine outside sources, triggers, devices never meant to be connected and interfaces made for a single person.
“On Tempo red days, preheat the house during the night’s off-peak hours, switch the water heater off until the evening, and tell me the day before how much it saves us.”
What the agent does · Tempo is a French tariff with 22 very expensive days a year, announced the day before by RTE, the grid operator. The agent fetches tomorrow’s colour, schedules the heating and a relay on the water heater, and computes the saving from your contract’s prices before sending the notification.
“Charge the car to 80% by 7:30 am: solar surplus first, then off-peak hours, and never on a red day.”
What the agent does · It reads the inverter’s output (often over Modbus TCP or a local API) and the home’s consumption, drives the charger (many speak OCPP) or the car’s API, and recomputes its plan with every cloud.
“Read the electricity meter live and show me every evening what the day cost, device by device, with the projected bill for the month.”
What the agent does · It has a small module plugged into the meter’s data output (the TIC port on a French Linky meter), adds plugs that measure consumption, then writes the Energy screen and the projection.
“If the house goes over 6 kVA, cut the water heater first, then the bedroom radiators, before the main breaker trips.”
What the agent does · It reads the instantaneous power from the meter, sheds load in the order you chose and restores everything when the load drops.
“Close the south-facing shutters when the sun hits that wall and it is over 26 °C outside; open them again as soon as it is cooler outside than inside. Except in the study while I am on a video call.”
What the agent does · It computes the sun’s position for your address and the orientation of each wall, compares indoor and outdoor sensors, and reads your calendar to spot video calls.
“If the forecast wind goes over 50 km/h within the hour, retract the awning, even if nobody is home, and let me know.”
What the agent does · It polls a forecast service (Open-Meteo, a national weather service…) every few minutes, or an anemometer if you have one, and logs every decision in the app.
“Only water the vegetable patch if the soil is dry and no rain is expected in the next 24 hours, and adjust the duration to the day’s heat.”
What the agent does · A soil moisture sensor, the rain forecast, a solenoid valve, and a watering history to check it got it right.
“When the weather service issues an orange storm warning for our area, retract the awning, close the roof windows and warn the whole house.”
What the agent does · It follows the official warning feed for your area and runs this scenario once per warning.
“When I leave the office and it is under 19 °C at home, start the heating so the house is warm when I arrive. If my calendar says I am staying at a hotel, do nothing.”
What the agent does · It sets up an open location app such as OwnTracks with you, defines the zones, reads your Google or iCloud calendar and estimates the warm-up time from the home’s history.
“On mornings when I have a meeting before 8:30, bring the wake-up light and the coffee machine forward by half an hour.”
What the agent does · It reads the calendar every evening, shifts the next day’s times and tells you in the app, so you can say no.
“When the last person leaves and a window is still open, send them a notification; if they do nothing within ten minutes, turn the heating off in that room.”
What the agent does · It infers presence from phones and sensors, knows who left last and notifies that person only.
“While we are on holiday, make the house live like we do: lights, shutters and TV at the times we really use them, not at the same minute every day.”
What the agent does · It replays the previous weeks’ history with a little randomness, and stops as soon as someone comes home.
“The air conditioner only has an infrared remote. I want to control it from the app, with the real set point and mode, and have it switch off when the window is open.”
What the agent does · It has you install an infrared transmitter (an ESP32 running ESPHome or a Broadlink box), captures or looks up the remote’s codes, then keeps track of the state itself, since infrared sends nothing back.
“The gate has a 433 MHz remote. Add a gate button to everyone’s screen; guests only get it between 8 am and 8 pm.”
What the agent does · It identifies the encoding with a radio receiver. Fixed code: a 433 MHz transmitter is enough. Rolling code: it does not clone it, and suggests wiring a relay to the push-button input of the motor’s board, which is often there for that purpose.
“The Somfy shutters only have RTS remotes. I want to control them without buying another hub.”
What the agent does · A 433.42 MHz transmitter driven by an ESP32, registered as an additional remote for each shutter. Your remotes keep working.
“The heat-pump water heater can only be controlled from the manufacturer’s app. Bring its temperature and mode into Miakapp.”
What the agent does · With your account, it observes what the app exchanges with the manufacturer’s server, finds the useful calls and replays them from the coordinator. It warns you if an update breaks them.
“The old tumble dryer has nothing connected. Tell whoever started it when it is done.”
What the agent does · A plug that measures power: when consumption drops and stays low, the cycle is over, and the notification goes to the person who tapped “starting a load” in the app.
“For our 7-year-old: three big illustrated buttons, her lamp, her shutters and the bedtime story on the speaker. Nothing else, and nothing after 9 pm.”
What the agent does · A separate interface for her account, with her own rights, enforced by the coordinator rather than just hidden on screen.
“For my father, whose eyesight is poor: a page in very large type with his bedroom heating and a button that sends me a notification.”
What the agent does · A high-contrast layout, two controls, and a notification that reaches your phone with his name on it.
“On the hallway tablet: the weather for the next two hours, who is home, bin day from the town’s collection calendar, and an “everything off” button on the way out.”
What the agent does · It fetches the collection calendar from your town’s website, combines presence and forecast, and builds a screen meant to be read from three metres away.
“For the holiday rental guests: access from Friday to Sunday, the Wi-Fi password, how to use the air conditioning and the heating of their floor, nothing more.”
What the agent does · Access that expires on its own, a welcome screen in their language, and rights limited to their floor.
“For me: a cockpit-style screen, every measurement, thirty-day charts and the log of everything the house decided.”
What the agent does · The same coordinator, an entirely different interface. The agent writes the HTML, CSS and charts it takes.
“If the freezer goes above −12 °C for more than twenty minutes, warn everyone, then remind us every hour until someone deals with it.”
What the agent does · A temperature probe and an alert that only stops once someone has acknowledged it in the app.
“At night, if water keeps running for two hours, close the main valve and wake me up.”
What the agent does · A pulse water meter or a flow sensor, a motorised valve, and a notification that rings.
“Tell me when a sensor’s battery drops below 20%, with the exact battery to buy.”
What the agent does · It tracks every sensor’s level and knows each model, so its battery.
“Look at what we have done by hand every day for the past month and suggest the automations we are missing.”
What the agent does · It reads the command history, spots repeated actions and offers to automate them one at a time, without enabling anything until you agree.
A radio or infrared transmitter, a relay, a sensor. The agent tells you which one, why, and prefers what works locally.
Rolling codes and secure locks are designed to resist. The agent then goes through a wired contact or an official integration; it does not bypass a security measure.
An undocumented API can break with the manufacturer’s next update. The agent warns you and picks a local option when there is one.
Opening, locking, heating: the agent only grants those rights if you asked, and only to the people you named.
Create the home, connect your agent, and start with what annoys you most.