roast my idea: an old android + a ₹599 chip, and chatgpt answers a shop's phone 24/7 (hindi/telugu/english)
solo founder from hyderabad. we all know that shop anna who never picks up the phone, so i gave a shop's phone to chatgpt. raw POC, filmed on a real call.
i called it as a customer. it answered in whatever i spoke (hindi, telugu, english), said sorry when i told it their sweets are rotten, and said pure veg only when i asked for chicken.
how: an old android + a ₹599 esp32 chip that acts as the phone's bluetooth headset, so chatgpt hears the call and talks back. no call centre software, no twilio, no new number; the shop keeps its own sim. its menu and rules sit on chatgpt's own computer in the cloud, always on, so it picks up at 2 am too.
am building this into a kit for small shops (it's called wrkr). before i do, roast it:
- would ur local shop owner trust AI with their phone?
- what breaks first: orders, angry customers, network?
- what shud it do on a call that staff can't?
credit to openai: the real-time voice in codex cli is what made this possible.