Got an idea for a gadget? With R1BBIT you can build it tonight. Flash a board, write a few lines of script, and you have a working device with a dashboard on your phone. Home automation, weather stations, LED art, retro gadgets, robots — the boring parts (toolchains, backends, wiring diagrams) get out of your way so you can just make things.
A worked example: heating and air conditioning
The radiator is either roasting or off, the air conditioner has a remote that lives under the sofa, and neither knows the other exists. An evening’s work puts both under one set of rules and one screen on your phone.
It learns the room
A temperature and humidity sensor on the board, a few lines of script, and the room’s real numbers start arriving instead of whatever the radiator’s own dial claims. They draw themselves as a chart, so you can see what the room actually does overnight.
It decides
A condition turns a relay on when the room drops below your number and off when it passes it, with a gap between the two so nothing chatters. The same script can drive the air conditioner instead, or both, one after the other.
You keep the override
Drop a slider and a couple of buttons onto the phone screen and bind them to the script’s own variables. Set the target from the sofa, get a push when the room has reached it, and let it carry on by itself the rest of the time.
Why makers love it
- Idea to device in minutes — the fastest path from a concept to a working prototype on ESP32.
- Control it from your phone — build a mobile dashboard with buttons, gauges and sliders, no app to code.
- Cloud & telemetry for free — log data, draw live charts, and control devices from anywhere.
- Rich output — displays, LED matrices, audio, even video and internet radio, all from simple commands.
- Bring any board — works with the ESP32 dev boards you already have.
What it takes
- An evening — the first version, reading the room and switching a relay, is one sitting.
- An ESP32 board and a sensor — a few dollars, and any supported board will do.
- A relay module — or an infrared LED, if the air conditioner takes a remote.
- No server of your own — the charts, the phone screen and the alerts are already running.
- No app to write — the published mobile apps show whatever screen your script defines.
Things people build
- Home automation and smart-home gadgets
- Weather stations and environment monitors
- LED signs, matrices and light art
- Robots and motorized projects
- Media gadgets — internet radio, players, displays