Vibe Coding my own ESP32 based Smart Home System

Soon as I heard about the new Antigravity agent-first IDE, The first thing I did was gave it a task to write a simple program for my Raspberry Pi Pico W to blink the LED. I used the best available model of that time, the Opus 4.5. Of course it downloaded the whole Arduino libraries and toolchain necessary to compile and upload the code to the Pico. The whole process was done in one shot and the LED blinked. I was truly impressed.

"My dream of becoming Tony Stark is finally coming true!"

So, I did the first thing any vibe coder would do. I scoured the Aliexpress for the more powerful and lightweight ESP32-C3. I love Aliexpress, cause it is dirt cheap, and I can find literally any component I need for most projects. I bought a few ESP32-C3 boards, MOSFETs, a battery, IR Blasters, and some Protoboards. However, I still had no idea what I was going to make. I just knew I had to make something usnig the power of AI agents and the low-cost hardware.

Ambilight TV System

From a Instagram reel, I got this idea of building an ambilight TV system for my room. I looked it up about how to build this thing and wire things up. Turns out it wasn't that hard, I just needed some addressable LED strips called WS2812B and a microcontroller (which I already had) to control them. So I ordered them from Aliexpress.

I assembled the hardware, following some random Youtube guy's instructions. It was a mess. The hardest part was to solder everthing together. I had to buy another voltage step-down module to get 5V for the ESP32 from the 12V supply to make it work like a PC independent product. It ended up looking like a spider. Then after I thought I was done, the RGB lights were flickering and making disco lights all over my room. Turns out, I didn't ground the system properly. It took me a whole night to figure that out. It seems like there is also a upper limit to the level of brightness these strips can provide. And of course, the LEDs were not sticking to the back of my TV.

After dealing with the hardware, I moved onto the software. This was the easiest part thanks to Antigravity and the open source Hyperion NG software. I installed Hyperion NG on my laptop that captures the screen and sends the color data it samples to the ESP32 via HTTP to control the LEDs. I just described what I wanted and it did the rest. I just had to connect and sometimes disconnect the ESP32 from my computer when the AI told me to.

Finally, I had a working ambilight system for my room 🥳. I love playing games with my new setup!

--- ## Hey Siri, Turn on my lights...

Remember the HomeKit integration? I asked the Antigravity to implement the HomeKit accessory server on the ESP32 using the ESP-HAP SDK. And it did! Using that, I could easily connect my TV Ambilight setup to my iPhone. And I could control it using Siri. "Hey Siri, turn on my TV Ambilight system!". I could also set automations, like turning on the lights when I get home. Even change the mood from the app. The ESP32 Ambilight Setup now work like a TV Ambilight system when connected to the Hyperion server, and like a Homekit-compatible mood light system when not connected to the Hyperion server.

--- ## Reverse Engineering a Fujitsu AC's Infrared (IR) Communication Protocol and Built a Custom Universal Remote ---