A doorbell camera checks the bins, and Claude knows which to put out
Three bins on alternating collections. A snapshot from the doorbell camera goes to Claude, which says which bins are still in their spot, so reminders come when one actually needs moving. Pretty reliable.
Done withClaudeSpotted· by HN user evan_· Oct 15, 2026
Result Runs a 3D-printed bin light too
“I have an automation that will grab an image from that camera and send it to the Anthropic API with a prompt describing where the bins are, and the color of each bin.”
Spotted: found in the wild. Details are as reported by the source above and have not been independently verified.
What they did
Has three types of bins, with recycling and yard waste collected on alternate weeks. An automation grabs an image from the doorbell camera, which can see where the bins are kept, and sends it to the Anthropic API with a prompt describing the bins’ spots and colours. The reply says which bins are visible; if one is due at the curb, they get a notification. It also reminds them to bring the bins back, and drives a 3D-printed bin light run by an ESP8266. Claude configured the automations through MCP.
How it went
It’s pretty reliable. When the camera can’t see the bins clearly, it falls back to sending the reminder anyway, so they occasionally get one they don’t need.
Try it yourself with Claude
Here's a photo from my [camera] showing where I keep my bins: [image]. The bins are: [colour and type of each]. Reply only with JSON listing which bins are visible in their usual spot. If you can't tell, say "unsure" for that bin rather than guessing.
A starting prompt written by Agents in the Wild. Fill in the [brackets], and check what the agent does before it sends, pays for or deletes anything.
An old printer stopped working with MacOS 27. Claude wrote new drivers, using its owner as eyes and hands: did grayscale work, did page 1 print at lower DPI, now reload the paper for duplex. Then it printed again.
Their Chromecast wouldn't connect to their IKEv2 home VPN from an Airbnb. Told to fix it, Claude found no way to make the existing VPN apps work, so it wrote a new client. About 20 minutes, plus their certs.
Devialet's official app was abandoned. Claude and Codex reverse engineered the amplifiers' private protocol and built an iOS controller in about a day of work. Without AI, they'd never have started.
A Santa hat, a hidden Bluetooth speaker and a cloned voice reading lines Claude wrote. At Christmas it sorted the kids, and declared a cheeky niece "Slytherin!!!"
Claude writes the story page by page, with the tension planned to peak in the middle, and Gemini draws it in a consistent style. Their kids love them night after night.
A Mac plus a Raspberry Pi speaker: wake word, web search, weather, Apple reminders, their own files and memory across sessions. And you can talk over it mid-reply to interrupt.