Necessity breeds innovation: Bengaluru techie builds AI fan that knows when he’s hot or cold!

They say necessity is the mother of invention- and in India, that saying plays out in the most unexpected ways. From jugaad water pumps in villages to DIY cooling hacks in cramped city apartments, everyday Indians constantly surprise the world with ingenious fixes crafted without factories, laboratories, or corporate funding. All it takes is a problem, a bit of coding- or wiring- and relentless curiosity.

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Adding to this growing list of homegrown innovations is a Bengaluru-based techie who decided he’d had enough of disrupted sleep.

A Sleepless Problem Sparks an Idea

A Bengaluru techie shared how he built an AI-powered “roommate” that adjusted his ceiling fan automatically based on how he slept in a now-viral post on social media.

The innovation was shared by software engineer Pankaj on X.

In his post, he explained that he was “tired” of waking up at 3 am either sweaty or freezing, which led him to train his system to monitor his sleep posture and control the fan accordingly.

How the AI ‘Roommate’ Works

Instead of relying on temperature sensors, Pankaj trained his system to observe body language. He claimed that if his arms or legs were sticking out from under the blanket, the system interpreted that as him feeling hot, and switched the fan on. If his arms were curled up, suggesting he's cold, the fan turned off.

The setup used a remote button pusher device that physically presses the fan switch after receiving signals from his system. He then detailed that the system ran a MediaPipe pose vision model on his Raspberry Pi home server. It detected his sleeping position in real time and sent commands to activate or deactivate the fan.

"That's it," he wrote, calling it what a “real smart home” looks like.

Visual Proof and Viral Applause

The accompanying image showed a modest bedroom setup with a camera overlay marking body joints and a label reading “FAN_ON ratio=2.32,” visually demonstrating how the system tracked pose detection.

i was tired of waking up at 3 am either sweaty or freezing. so i taught my ai roommate to automatically control the fan by watching me sleep 📸

arms or leg sticking out means i'm hot so fan turns on, arms curled up means i'm cold so fan turns off. it uses a remote button pusher… https://t.co/WYkbbcVoVHpic.twitter.com/slpENOzX9I

— Pankaj (@the2ndfloorguy) February 20, 2026

His smart invention gained traction on social media, with users praising its creativity and execution.

OMG. internet went absolutely wild on my last project 😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/uhUfBgGUVY

— Pankaj (@the2ndfloorguy) February 22, 2026

One user wrote, “You are building solutions every other day like they are piece of cake !! Total out-of-the- box thinking and great use of tech.”

Another quipped, “Your AI roommate does more for you than most actual roommates.”

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Several users also applauded the project as a clever example of practical AI application, not just automation for convenience, but a personalised comfort solution built from scratch. Others jokingly asked for a tutorial or GitHub link to replicate the setup in their own homes.