Somewhere right now, a portable toilet on a job site is reporting its fill level to a dashboard. If it tips over, it sends an alert.
That's a real product. I'll tell you whether it's a good one in a minute.
Contractors are getting pitched AI for everything from answering phones to running their entire businesses. Some of it is remarkable. Some of it makes you wonder whether anyone asked what the problem was before building the solution.
I've been digging into the stranger corners of technology being sold to the trades, and I've come away with a few surprises. Some of the most ridiculous-sounding inventions solve expensive, everyday problems. Meanwhile, some of the most sophisticated AI platforms have a harder time explaining exactly what they're worth.
So let's play a game. Here are six real products, in no particular order. Read what they do and make your call before you read mine: brilliant or ridiculous?
One ground rule: not everything here is AI. Some are robots, some are sensors, and some are AI agents. That distinction matters, especially when just about everything with a circuit board is being marketed as artificial intelligence.
Brilliant or Ridiculous?
1. A robot whose whole job is twisting wire
Robotics with computer vision
Meet TyBot.
It rides a gantry across a bridge deck, finds intersections in the rebar mat, and ties them together. That's its entire job.
On Pennsylvania's Hulton Bridge project, Brayman Construction reportedly spent 7,400 labor hours tying roughly 2 million rebar intersections. That's a lot of people spending a lot of time bent over, twisting wire. The project was one of the problems that inspired TyBot's development, according to Global Construction Review.
TyBot was developed to automate exactly that kind of repetitive work. And there's more than a manufacturer's promise behind it. On a 2019 bridge project, Advanced Construction Robotics documented 34% fewer labor hours than budgeted for the relevant work, with the robot handling the bulk tying on two spans.
One of its co-founders described it as "a very boring robot that has great application and profitability."
I love that description.
A gantry robot isn't practical for a small residential project. But when you're tying thousands or millions of intersections on bridge decks, the economics start to make sense.
My verdict: Boring. Brilliant.
2. An AI team that runs your service operation
AI agents
SuperDupr markets AI automation to HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and other home-service companies.
Its offerings include answering calls, booking appointments, dispatching technicians, sending customer communications, and following up for reviews.
Those are legitimate business functions. The company also advertises some impressive performance figures, including 50% more jobs booked through AI call answering on its home-services page.
What I couldn't find alongside that claim was enough detail about the customers, measurement period, or methodology to evaluate how broadly it applies.
Missed calls and inefficient dispatching are real problems. I spend a lot of time helping contractors address exactly those kinds of revenue leaks.
But before adding another layer of AI to a service business, I'd want to know how much of the work its existing software already handles and what the new system does better.
We'll come back to this one.
My verdict: Impressive technology. Show me the math.
3. The porta-potty that knows when it's full
Sensors. Not AI.
Back to our opening act.
Sensoneo sells technology that monitors the fill level of portable toilets. It also tracks their locations and can alert operators when a unit tips over.
Yes, somebody invented a toilet that tattles.
And I think it's pretty clever.
Imagine managing hundreds of portable toilets scattered across construction sites and events. Every unnecessary pump-out means paying for a truck, a driver, fuel, and time. Every overflowing unit means a different kind of problem.
Knowing which units actually need service could make a meaningful difference to a rental company's operating costs.
The tilt alarm is still funny. The business case isn't.
My verdict: Brilliant. Also, not AI.
4. AI that reads the sticker on your furnace
AI
Several apps now let an HVAC technician photograph an equipment data plate and have AI read the model number, serial number, and other identifying information.
Some can use that information to estimate the equipment's age.
measureQuick's AI System Profiler does exactly that. The company says it can save technicians about 10 to 15 minutes per job by automatically building an equipment profile.
At first glance, this seems like an elaborate way to read a sticker.
But consider the math.
A technician running four calls a day who saves ten minutes on each gets back 40 minutes. Across a five-day week, that's more than three hours of potential time savings.
That doesn't automatically translate into another billable call or additional profit. But it's worth measuring, particularly if the information flows directly into the service record instead of being entered manually later.
Knowing a system's age can also help frame a replacement conversation. Of course, the manufacture date doesn't tell you how well the equipment has been maintained or whether it actually needs replacing.
The value isn't simply that AI can read a label. It's what happens with the information afterward.
My verdict: Small task. Potentially worthwhile savings.
5. A flying pressure washer
Pilot-operated drone with automated assistance
Lucid Bots makes a drone called Sherpa that can clean building exteriors while its operator stays safely on the ground.
It's essentially a flying pressure washer connected to a hose.
The company advertises cleaning configurations reaching roughly 150 feet and has listed purchase packages starting around $45,750. It also offers monthly subscription options starting at $2,950, with terms and equipment packages that vary.
Which sounds outrageous until you consider the alternatives.
Commercial exterior cleaning often requires lifts, scaffolding, or workers suspended from ropes. Those methods carry substantial equipment costs, setup time, and safety risks.
Lucid Bots claims savings of up to 80% compared with traditional methods involving rented lifts and heavy equipment. That's a vendor claim, not a savings figure every contractor should expect.
Still, for a company that regularly cleans multi-story buildings, the economics are worth investigating. A smaller crew, faster setup, and less work at height could justify a significant investment.
For someone who pressure-washes driveways twice a month? Probably not.
My verdict: Ridiculous until you see the lift rental bill.
6. An AI maintenance coordinator that still needs human oversight
AI agent
Vendoroo is an AI maintenance coordination platform for property management companies.
Tenants submit repair requests. The AI helps troubleshoot problems, determines whether a vendor is needed, and coordinates the work.
For example, a tenant reports that an outlet stopped working. Instead of immediately dispatching an electrician, the system might walk the tenant through checking a tripped GFCI.
That could save a property manager a lot of unnecessary service calls.
But here's the interesting part: Vendoroo's own description of its service emphasizes that humans remain involved in decisions and oversight.
The AI coordinator still needs people.
There's something funny about that, considering how often AI is marketed as a replacement for administrative labor. But the more I thought about it, the less ridiculous it seemed.
Vendoroo cites a 1,200-unit property management company that says the technology helped it avoid hiring two additional maintenance coordinators while absorbing 300 more units.
That's a vendor-reported customer result, not an independently audited financial analysis. Still, if one person overseeing a system can handle work that would otherwise require additional employees, it could be an excellent investment.
The real question is what the company spent on software, supervision, and error correction—and whether tenants and vendors received better service.
My verdict: The AI has a manager. Does the math still work?
The AI Question Contractors Should Be Asking
Let's return to the AI systems being sold to home-service companies.
Answer the phone. Book the appointment. Assign the technician. Send the ETA. Request the review.
If you've worked with field-service software, that list probably sounds familiar.
ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, Jobber, and other platforms offer versions of several of these functions, depending on the subscription, configuration, and available integrations.
Some contractors are already paying for much of this functionality and aren't using it.
That doesn't make a new AI system worthless. An integrated solution might outperform a collection of separate workflows. It might handle exceptions better, reduce missed calls, or make life substantially easier for the office staff.
I'd love to see it.
Show me what the new system does that the contractor's existing software can't. Show me the implementation and maintenance costs. Show me how many additional jobs a comparable business booked after putting it in place.
And if you're going to promise a 50% improvement, show me where that number came from.
Compare that to TyBot. You can count the intersections, measure the labor hours, and calculate what the work costs.
That's the kind of math I'd like to see behind every AI pitch.
The fact that something can be automated doesn't tell us whether automating it is a good investment.
Four Questions Before You Buy Another AI Tool
I don't think contractors need to become AI experts to make smart technology decisions. They do need to understand their own operations well enough to recognize where an investment might pay off.
Before buying another platform, agent, or subscription, I'd ask four questions.
1. How often does this problem actually happen?
An annoying task you perform twice a year probably doesn't justify a monthly subscription. Something that costs every technician 15 minutes on every service call deserves a closer look.
2. What's the problem costing you today?
Missed calls, wasted trips, slow estimates, callbacks, and unclosed quotes all have costs. Get a reasonable estimate of those costs before evaluating a solution.
And remember that time saved isn't necessarily money earned. The financial benefit depends on what the business can do with that time.
3. Are you already paying for something that solves it?
Before adding another login, investigate what your existing CRM or field-service software can do.
You might need a new tool. You might need someone to configure the tools you already have. Or you might discover that the problem is a process nobody consistently follows.
4. Can the vendor demonstrate the result?
Ask for an example from a company similar to yours. What changed? Over what period? How was the improvement measured? What did implementation cost?
A precise percentage without any supporting detail isn't much help when you're making a purchasing decision.
And don't forget the ongoing cost. Software subscriptions, training, integrations, and maintenance all belong in the calculation.
A $50,000 robot can be a bargain. A $99 monthly subscription can be a waste. The price only matters in relation to the problem it solves.
Before You Automate Anything
Some of the dumbest-looking technology solves the smartest problems. Some of the smartest-looking technology solves problems nobody bothered to measure.
I started this research expecting to find a collection of absurd AI inventions being pushed on contractors. I certainly found some questionable marketing claims. But I also found robots twisting rebar, drones cleaning buildings, and sensors making portable toilets more economical to service.
A few of the ideas that made me laugh turned out to have some of the clearest business cases.
That seems worth remembering the next time someone pitches you an AI agent that promises to transform your company.
Before you buy it, make sure you understand the problem it's supposed to solve and what that problem is costing you.
At Raise the Trades, I help independent contractors identify where they're losing leads, jobs, and revenue, then build practical systems to fix those problems. Sometimes that involves AI. Sometimes it involves better use of software they already own. And sometimes the solution is a straightforward change in how the business operates.