alt Hacker NewsShow HN: My $300 embroidery machine needed a subscription, so I built my own app
Comments
If there's one thing I'm very optimistic about with AI, it's the de-bricking of bricked things, giving new life to legacy/unsupported software and hardware, or just getting around shitty practices like this.
Seems very promising. I have a home recording studio, and there's a small revolution going on with people cloning subscription-based stuff. Some brands are notorious for making expensive equipment which they just stop supporting after 10 years, sometimes rendering them obsolete. Or tacking ridiculous licensing mechanism onto the equipment.
For anyone interested in this space, I'd also recommend looking at InkStitch[0], which is a plugin for InkScape. It allows you to take SVGs and export them into file types that an embroidery machine can use. It's not without its faults (there is a surprising amount of care needed for any design - stitch placement, size, type, layering, etc), but it's been a fun experience to take an SVG and turn it into something real.
William Osman built a browser app that works pretty well too: https://www.stitchslop.com/
I think that one was built with Claude (he wanted to embroider cats on merch, and didn't like the expensive subscription software's ancient UX).
Love this type of stuff but afraid it won't last. Only a matter of time before OEMs ask same LLM to setup secure boot with signed firmware with anti-rollback and pinned certs.
There is already prior art like anything Google (phones, Fitbit)
What's next? My printer allowing me to use my own ink? OMG? It's the Wild West again, man.
I'll have to give this a try. Back when I was trying to do embroidery with my $300 machine, I found that Hatch was the only software that would consistently give me good results. The only problem was that Hatch (at the time) was over $1,000 USD. I am a hobbyist, I refuse to pay that much for a hobby I hardly engage with. The saving grace there was that Hatch had a 30 day free trial, which I could continue to renew with a different email.
About a year into doing this, they patched it so the license server would save your HWID and would not run in a VM anymore. I decided to just give up on the hobby right there.
Maybe this will finally get me to pull the machine out of the garage and get back into it!
I'm tired of everything needing a subscription.
Life was better before the internet which allowed companies to remotely put their hands in our pockets.
Love to see it OP! I would love to try this out.
I'm curious, how do you make sure that the embroidery files are valid of the file type (.exp) for example, and that B) things aren't done in such a way that cause the needle to break, stiches to overlap too much, etc etc that would otherwise harm a machine that reads the file?
Super cool, but I wish you said both what your $300 machine is and also what machines this is compatible with somewhere very clear.
The readme does not specify which brand(s) or machine(s) are supported? It only mentions BT for communication? Is there then a kind of standard protoc?
Interesting, Youtuber William Osman is also working on something similar, but for full size industrial machines. I'm not sure if its public released yet though.
Also don't forget Linus him self wrote one of the embroidery machine drivers for Linux.
This is great! Would love to see something like this for Cricut.
Years ago I ran across another project doing similar. Embroidermodder.
https://www.libembroidery.org/
Always room for another though.
This is a really cool use case for AI coding. Well done
We're going to see more of this. Like the guy that made the custom Mac print driver. Most companies put zero effort into making sure things like this aren't homebrew hackable.
What’s the Embroidery machine name and model this was built for?
very cool, thanks for sharing.
what machine would you recommend to someone looking to get into this as a hobby?
We should kill subscription models with LLMs app by app (and possibly server by server) until hardware is sold as standalone hardware with no strings attached. I don't care if this slows down r&d or makes printers more expensive. Hardware vendors have abused the subscription model to a point that they can't be trusted with it.
The supplied software is truly terrible.
[flagged]
Vegan, Crossfit, and Burning Man joke now needs to include "builds with Rust" too.
I'm going to assume Claude did the heavy lifting here (because it's Q4 2026 and the odds are in my favor), so if I'm right: this is one of the best examples of the way LLMs can empower users to not only scratch all the itches, but demonstrate to anyone who stumbles by just how satisfying it can be to do so themselves.
Your app represents a future that I, an old, actually love. When I see projects like this, I don't think about ongoing support or if the project will be abandoned. I think, "Woah, I hadn't thought of that. Now I'm going to try it. Because why wouldn't I try to get all the value I can out of my $20/month Claude subscription?"
Even though I've been a developer for 30+ years (and a nerd for longer), I've never felt so motivated by the potential of a technology to make an individual's life richer. Thanks for sharing it.
And if you wrote it by hand, my hat's off to you for sharing that, too.