Vibe coding isn’t just for websites and apps. You can vibe code for hardware too! Here’s how to get started.
I built my first hardware project with almost zero hardware experience. That’s kind of my thing at this point, haha. But if the idea of connecting code to a physical device sounds intimidating, I promise you it’s more accessible than you think.
Why Hardware?
Honestly, the feeling of your code making something happen in the real world is pretty unmatched!
My First Hardware Project: The Receipt Printer
I connected a thermal printer to a Raspberry Pi and built a web app that let people from all around the world send messages directly to my house. You can still message my printer right now at maddiedreese.com/message.
Thousands of messages came through. People shared their fears, their happiest moments, random snapshots of their day. People told me the project brought a little brightness to their lives. Others wanted to build their own version to stay connected with family and friends. It was so much fun.
I started by going back and forth with ChatGPT to get guidance on how the whole system would work. What do I need to buy? How do I connect a printer to a Raspberry Pi? How do I make it accessible from the internet? ChatGPT walked me through all of it. Then I built the actual project in Cursor.
My Second Hardware Project: The E-Ink Tamagotchi
You might have seen the Xteink e-reader go viral a bit ago. It’s this tiny e-ink device that’s infinitely hackable, and it completely inspired me. I knew I had to do something with it!
So I built an e-ink tamagotchi for OpenClaw. I created custom firmware for the Xteink using Anthropic Claude Code inside Cursor, and turned it into a little device that shows OpenClaw’s responses and mood through custom pixel art sprites that I designed using Nano Banana Pro.
I send OpenClaw a message. OpenClaw responds. And then OpenClaw’s response and current mood show up on the Xteink sitting on my desk, with a little sprite that changes based on what it’s doing: idle, thinking, talking, excited, sleeping, working. It feels alive!
And when I ran into issues toward the end, I actually asked OpenClaw itself how to fix things (and it worked)!
How to Get Started
Here’s what I’ve learned from building hardware projects as a vibe coder with no hardware background: The process is honestly very similar to how you’d vibe code a web app. You just have AI guide you through the parts you don’t know.
Step 1: Start with an idea.
Just like any vibe coding project, you start with an idea. It doesn’t need to be complicated. “I want to make a little screen that displays messages.” “I want to print things wirelessly.” “I want to make something light up when I get a notification.” That is honestly enough for this stage! You don’t need to know how it works yet.
Step 2: Open an AI chat and start asking questions.
This is the most important step. Before I bought anything for the receipt printer, I sat down with ChatGPT and just started asking questions, like:
“I want to build a device that lets people send messages to a printer in my house from the internet. What hardware do I need to buy?”
“What’s the easiest way to connect a thermal printer to a Raspberry Pi?”
“Can you walk me through this step by step?”
At this point, if you’re using a good enough model, the AI will walk you through everything. What to buy, how to set it up, what the steps are. It’s the same process you use when you’re vibe coding a web app and you ask “how do I add authentication” or “how do I set up a database.” You just ask, and it tells you.
I did the same thing for the e-ink tamagotchi. I asked Anthropic Claude how the Xteink works, how to write custom firmware for it, and how to get it to display what I wanted. I didn’t know any of that going in. I just asked.
Step 3: Buy the hardware.
Once you’ve talked through your idea with AI and you know what you need, order the parts. For most beginner projects, this is going to be pretty affordable. A Raspberry Pi runs around $35-80. Something like the Xteink ereader is similar. You can find everything online (or at a hardware store like Micro Center, if you’re lucky enough to have one nearby).
Step 4: Build with the same tools you already use.
Here’s the part that surprised me most: building for hardware uses the same tools you already know. I built the receipt printer in Cursor. I built the e-ink tamagotchi using Anthropic Claude Code inside Cursor. I used GitHub for version control. I used ChatGPT for planning and troubleshooting. These are some of the exact same tools I use for web projects.
The only difference is that instead of deploying to Netlify, you’re deploying to a physical device. But the actual process of writing code, asking AI for help, debugging, and iterating is pretty identical.
Step 5: When you get stuck, keep asking.
You will get stuck. That’s fine. The same way you get stuck building a web app and paste your error into an AI chat, you do the exact same thing with hardware. Paste the error, describe what you’re trying to do, and ask what’s happening.
For the e-ink tamagotchi, I even asked OpenClaw itself to help me debug issues toward the end. It worked, haha. Use every AI tool available to you!
Step 6: Read the documentation.
I say this in pretty much every article I write and it applies even more to hardware. AI tools can hallucinate hardware capabilities just like they hallucinate API features. The docs for your specific board and peripherals are your source of truth. Always check, just to make sure you aren’t buying anything that won’t actually work for your use case.
Step 7: Ship it!
Once it works, show people! Hardware projects get incredible reactions. And if you want to go the extra mile, open source it on GitHub so other people can build their own version. I open sourced my receipt printer and my OpenClaw tamagotchi on my GitHub and people have already forked them to build their own. Which is so cool!
What I Want You to Take Away
You don’t need a hardware background. You don’t need an electrical engineering degree. You need a Raspberry Pi or a hackable little device like the Xteink, an AI chat to ask questions, and the willingness to try something new!
The vibe coding community is building incredible things on screens. Imagine what happens when those same people start building things you can hold in your hands.
If you’ve built a hardware project, or if you’re thinking about starting one, I’d love to hear about it. What would you build?