All Jupiter Broadcasting Shows Automated Love Crunch | LINUX Unplugged 658
Mar 15, 2026
They talk about rebuilding a Chinese diesel heater and adding open-source control with an ESP32 and Home Assistant integration. Reverse engineering UART protocols and using ESPHome components come up. An AI coding agent is used to automate flashing, signal analysis, and remote tests. Browser automation via the Model Context Protocol and live agent-driven shopping demos are also explored.
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LLM-Driven Firmware Iteration Speeds Hardware Debugging
- Using an LLM-driven tooling loop dramatically accelerated debugging by iterating firmware, test sequences, and patches in real time.
- OpenCode generated signal-analyzer firmware, detected wrong baud/volt issues, rebuilt ESPhome images, and reduced human guesswork.
Use MCU Voltage Sensing To Automate Hardware Tests
- Do expose analog readings to the microcontroller so automated tools can self-test hardware without manual multimeter input.
- Brent routed a voltage-sense pin into the ESP32 so OpenCode could read voltages and close the test loop autonomously.
Emulate Push Buttons With A Transistor Controlled By ESP32
- Do use a transistor driven by the ESP32 to emulate a micro push-button for devices with tiny momentary switches.
- Brent implemented a transistor circuit to short the heater's micro switch and timed presses for on/off behavior programmatically.