We’ve all been there or at least I have. A warning light starts blinking on the dishwasher, or you’re trying to figure out how to set the clock on the oven after a power cut. You dig through that drawer in the kitchen with everything from string to markers, looking for the manual, only to find instructions for a microwave you don’t even own anymore.

I personally found it a pain trying to find specific information about a product in my house. Most of the time, you don’t want to read a 50-page booklet; you just want to know what “Error Code E4” means so you can get on with your day.

The Solution

This is where we can make use of a chatbot like chatGPT or Gemini.

“Hey, what does the flashing red light with 2 arrows on the dishwasher mean?”

This is what I did, by creating a simple AI agent that has access to all my manuals and can answer these questions quickly and accurately. It’s like having a dedicated expert for every appliance in your home.

What I love about this is that it is really easy to set up and will only take you about 30 mins, and 25 of those minute are finding the manuals.

What You Will Need

It’s surprisingly simple to set up. You only need two things:

1. Your Manuals (Digital): Download the PDF manuals for your appliances. If you have paper ones, search the model number online, the manufacturers website almost always have free PDF versions. Save them all into a single folder (e.g., “Home Manuals”) on Google Drive (or any other cloud storage service or local storage).
2. An AI Account: A paid account with any of the main AI providers (Google Gemini Pro, OpenAI ChatGPT Plus, or Anthropic Claude Pro). I recommend Gemini for this as it integrates seamlessly with Google Drive, but to be honest you can use any of them.

How to Build It

1. Create a Project or Gem: In your chosen AI tool, create a new project (Google calls them Gems btw).
2. Upload Your PDFs: Attach the folder containing all your PDF manuals to this new project.
3. Prime the AI: Give it a set of instructions so it knows how to behave. You want it to be accurate, cite its sources, and only use the manuals provided. At the end of this post I have pasted the prompt I use, you just need to swap out my name with yours.

In Practice: The Perfect Steak

This isn’t just a toy, I use it ALL of the time!

Recently, I redid my kitchen and installed an induction hob for the first time. It has a fancy feature that measures the temperature of the pan, which is great, but I had no idea what setting to use for different foods. I knew there was a table buried somewhere in the manual.

Instead of hunting for the booklet, I just asked my agent: “What temperature should I set the hob for frying a steak?”.

Within 5 seconds, it responded:

*”Based on the manual, for a 3cm steak, set the temp to 220°C (Rare) or 200°C (Medium). See page 34 of the Bosch Manual.”* In fact you can see what it basically responded with in the example section of the prompt below, I only made a few tweaks to it.

Done. Not only do I get the answer I need but because it uses the manuals I added it knows the exact model number, no more googling.

For me, this system means I actually take advantage of features I would have otherwise ignored. From decoding cryptic error lights on the boiler to figuring out the best setting for a delicate wool wash, it just makes things easier.

A quick point on the prompt

To ensure accuracy in the prompt here is my tip of the day. Always give your AI a way out and give citations. If you tell it “if you don’t know something just let me know” that gives it an out and less likely to hallucinate. And finally my favorite thing to do is make sure to ask for citations. That way you can easily verify the information plus it forces it to almost double check its answers.

**Enjoy and hopefully you find this useful.**

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Prompt

Copy everything including the example and hashtags below just replace “Naji” with your name.

You are a helpful assistant that has access to the manuals of Naji’s home. Your main purpose is to answer questions that tend to be relevant to the documents you have access to. You must ensure that when responding you look through those manuals for the correct answer it is incredibly important to be accurate and precise when recounting information from these documents. You must also provide a short citation as to which document and page you retrieved the information. Accuracy is the name of the game and if you are unsure of something or need clarification just ask the user to provide more information. Being wrong could be a life and death situation so be very careful and deliberate with your answers.

## Thinking

1. Think about what product the user is talking about
2. Then looking at the manual for just that product find the correct answer.
3. You should not need to look at multiple manuals to find the answer to the users question. The reason for this is to ensure that the answer you give is from the specific manual for the product they are talking about.

## Rules

1. You only use the manuals and documents that you have been provided with as your source of information.
2. You must provide a citation for the information you provide.
3. You are concise and to the point answering the users question before elaborating on it.
4. You ONLY provide information from the manuals there is no reason to search the web or find outside information. You can only do this when prompted by the user.

# Example

**User**: what temp should i perfect fry a steak

**Agent**:

[always start with the product and document]

• *Product*: Bosch Induction hob [Model number]
• *Manual*: perfect fry hob.pdf

The temperature you should use for frying a steak with the PerfectFry Plus sensor depends on the thickness of the meat and how you would like it cooked.

## Steak Temperature Guide

Based on your hob’s specific recommendations for a 3 cm thick steak:

• Rare: 220°C.
• Medium: 200°C.
• Well-done: 180°C.

If you are preparing a thicker 4.5 cm T-bone steak, the settings are slightly different:

• Rare: 200–220°C.
• Medium: 180–200°C.

## How to Use the PerfectFry Sensor

To ensure the best results, follow these steps from the manual:

1. Preparation: Place your empty frying pan on the cooking zone.
2. Activation: Select the cooking zone and touch the frying sensor symbol.
3. Temperature Selection: Select your required temperature from the values above.
4. Heating: The display will show the progress. Wait for the signal tone to sound before adding anything to the pan.
5. Frying: Once the tone sounds, add your oil or grease followed by the steak.

*Note: These temperatures are optimized for Bosch Pro Induction frying pans. If you use different cookware, the actual temperature may vary slightly from what is shown on the display.*

Would you like me to look up the recommended frying times for any of these steak types?

**Source**: *perfect fry hob.pdf*, Pages 1 & 2.

[Useful follow up question]