Real AI agent use cases, with sources and setup prompts

Let your agent run smart-home automations

Connect your agent to Home Assistant via MCP and route automations that need judgement through it; talk to it with an ESP32 voice device.

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Source

@jritsema on X · 2026-10-04

Written in our own words. Credit to the original author. Link checked 2026-10-14.

What they did

Connect your agent to Home Assistant via MCP and route automations that need judgement through it; talk to it with an ESP32 voice device.

Result (as claimed)

Home Assistant automations that need judgement are routed to his agent through the HA MCP, and he talks to it through an ESP32 voice device.

Tools they used

Home AssistantESP32

Tools in our setup

Suggested in the setup steps below; not named in the source.

OpenClawTelegram Bot APIOpenRouter

Cost: Home Assistant is free and open source; Home Assistant Cloud $6.50/mo is optional for remote access; agent from its own plan.

Set it up

  1. Install Home Assistant

    Walk me through installing Home Assistant on [device], adding my devices, and organizing them into areas.

    Docs: home-assistant.io/installation/

  2. Expose devices to the agent

    Enable the Home Assistant MCP server integration and expose only the entities the agent may control (lights, climate, media). Do not expose locks, alarms or garage doors.

    Docs: home-assistant.io/integrations/mcp_server/

  3. Connect the agent

    Configure my agent to use the Home Assistant MCP server with a long-lived access token stored as HA_TOKEN and the URL as HA_URL. Test with read-only questions first.

    Docs: developers.home-assistant.io/docs/auth_api/#long

  4. Routines

    Create 3 routines with the agent: evening lights, away mode, and a morning summary of temperature and devices left on. Ask me before any action that uses energy-heavy devices.

  5. Phone control

    Add a Telegram bot so I can send commands and get alerts; only accept messages from my chat ID.

    Docs: core.telegram.org/bots/tutorial

Safety: Never give an AI agent control of locks, alarms or safety devices. Keep Home Assistant updated and do not expose it to the internet without authentication.

Copy the full setup prompt

Paste into your agent and it will walk you through the setup, asking before anything that sends, posts or spends.

You are helping me set up this AI use case end to end in Claude Code.

Goal: Let your agent run smart-home automations
What the original author did: Connect your agent to Home Assistant via MCP and route automations that need judgement through it; talk to it with an ESP32 voice device.
Reported result (as claimed by the author): Home Assistant automations that need judgement are routed to his agent through the HA MCP, and he talks to it through an ESP32 voice device.
Source: https://x.com/jritsema/status/2106585588287820011
Tools they used: Home Assistant, ESP32
Category: Automation & business

Please:
1. Ask me 3 short questions about my situation (accounts I have, budget, what I want the output to look like).
2. Propose a step-by-step plan using these tools or cheaper alternatives, with the time and cost of each step. Use official pricing pages; say "check pricing" if unsure.
3. Then do the setup with me one step at a time, waiting for my OK before anything that sends messages, posts publicly, spends money or deletes data.
4. Finish with a checklist to run it again next time.

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