Comment by evan_

Yah, this is how I've solved this in my Home Assistant setup. My doorbell camera can see where I keep my bins when they're not out. We have three types of bins- a trash bin, a recycle bin, and two yard waste bins. Recycling and yard waste are picked up on alternate weeks, and I often forget which bins need to go out.

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. The prompt comes back with JSON indicating which bins it can see. If it can see e.g. the yard waste bin, and it's time to take the yard waste bin to the curb, it will send me a notification.

It also reminds me when it's time to return them to their "resting" position after pickup- unless I already have.

Home Assistant orchestrates this all. I also have it hooked up to a "Bindicator"- a white 3D printed bin with a color-changing LED inside, controlled by an ESP8266 using ESPHome. When it's time to move the bin it lights up the color of the bin that needs to be moved. If I haven't moved the bins back after a day it turns orange to remind me.

Claude configured the automations for me via MCP but it's not particularly complicated. It's pretty reliable, though sometimes just because of where the doorbell camera is it can't clearly see the bins. If it can't make a ruling on the bin location it just falls back to notifying me so I will sometimes get a reminder I don't need.