Category: home hacks

The advent of affordable computing over the last few decades has certainly been a boon for many people with disabilities, making it easier to access things like text-to-speech technology, automation, or mobility devices, and even going as far as making it easier to work in general by making remote work possible. Some things still lag […]
If you need to weigh your pet, you’ll soon find that getting an animal to stand on a weighing machine to order is very difficult indeed. If the critter in question is a cat or a small dog you can weigh yourself both holding them and not holding them, and compute the difference. But in […]
In a fusion of scrapyard elegance and Aussie ingenuity, [Mark Makies] has given a piece of old steel a steamy second life with his ‘CastAway Tub’. Call it a bush mechanic’s fever dream turned functional sculpture, starring two vintage LandCruiser leaf springs, and a rust-hugged cast iron tub dug up after 20 years in hiding. […]
Some cats are what you might call indoor cats, happy to stretch out in the lap of indoor luxury and never bother themselves with the inclement outdoors again. Others however are fully in touch with their Inner Cat, and venture forth frequently in search of whatever prey they can find. [Rkramer] has a cat of […]
After seeing this project, we can say that [James] must be a top-tier roommate. He has two flatmates– one human, one feline, and the feline flatmate’s litterbox was located in a bathroom close to the other human’s room. The odors were bothersome. A bad roommate might simply say that wasn’t their problem, but not [James]. […]
We love seeing hacks that involve salvaging parts from what you have on hand to make a new project work, and this project is a great example of that. [Simon], in a quick weekend build, created an automated blinds opener using parts he had available. The project began with the desire to have his blinds […]
Part of the charm of having a cat in your life is that by their nature these animals are very interactive. They will tell you in no uncertain terms when something in their lives needs attention, for example when their water dish is empty. But why not give them a drinking fountain all of their […]
It’s been a universal trait among the different faithful Hackaday Hounds who have loped around these parts over the decades, that there is no place warm enough for their tastes. Fire up the stove and the dog is there stretched out in front of it, leaving one to wonder whether our house temperature is being […]
The hack we have for you today is among our most favorite types of hack: a good, honest, simple, and well documented implementation that meets a real need. Our hacker [Solo Pilot] has sent in a link to their basement monitor. The documentation is quite good. It’s terse but comprehensive with links to related information. […]
Remember The Clapper? It was a home automation tool (of sorts) that let you turn appliances on and off by clapping. [Kevin O’Connor] has built something rather similar, if more terrifying. It’s called The Screamer. The build is based around a Sonoff S31 smart switch. [Kevin] selected an off-the-shelf device because he wanted something that […]