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Ask HN: Who is using OpenClaw?

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Re: Ask HN: Who is using OpenClaw?

#291

Post by arjie »

I have a clawlike. It’s just a small agentic loop with tools that are other specialized agents. It can write things itself but I upgrade many of the things it writes to first class if I use them a lot.

As an example, it has a built-in web server which I find useful. The basic agent is easy to write and it’s trivial to add a Telegram bot. Mine also uses Codex’s subscription and then swaps to other things as it burns through Codex. The Gemmas have been great and I’m heading home to buy a few RTX 6000 Pro Blackwells so I’m sure it’ll be quite good after.

I outsource a lot of research and so on to it and all my flight and trip emails are forwarded to its mailbox. So it always knows where I am and things like that. I find this very useful.

My wife and I are in a group chat with it and we use it to plan stuff and so on.

Re: Ask HN: Who is using OpenClaw?

#292

Post by enochthered »

bdcravens wrote: post #111
redact207 wrote: post #39

When I saw Jensen's talk about how Openclaw surpassed React and Linux in terms of GitHub stars within a few months, I knew the whole thing was manufactured bot hype. No one can tell me a compelling use case. The whole thing seems designed around getting people to burn more tokens.

Every time I've sat down to consider how it could be useful, I can't think of anything that I couldn't build as a series of cron jobs and Playwright scripts. (even using Claude Code to do the heavy lifting at first, but then the tokens are spent and I don't have ongoing cost) I can only guess it's really not for "us", but rather for those who aren't afraid of technology but aren't really engineers.

I’ve built a few recurring tasks with an OpenClaw. It’s fun to sit on the sofa and task it. That said, everything I’ve built with it I’ve realised would work better as a script.

Re: Ask HN: Who is using OpenClaw?

#293

Post by nfgrep »

I tried it for a few days and then dropped it. The prompting/memory/context system for OpenClaw chewed tokens and performed subpar for my usecase. I was mostly interested in having AI writing little toy projects. I used pi over ssh instead, and eventually built myself a little mobile-first web UI wrapping pi.

Re: Ask HN: Who is using OpenClaw?

#294

Post by cpursley »

dsiegel2275 wrote: post #271
Sajarin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What flashcard app are you using? Anki?

I had used Anki for a few years but recently migrated all my cards out of it and into a custom app I built just a few months ago. It is as an Elixir/Phoenix app with a simple UI but also with a rich API for Agent integration.

Any chance you might consider open sourcing this?

Re: Ask HN: Who is using OpenClaw?

#295

Post by piazz »

Yes, every day.

Similar to other users here, giving it access to an Obsidian vault has been the key for me. And I wouldn't discount how much the chat interface matters - Telegram is so much nicer to use for extended conversations than the Claude or ChatGPT apps, etc.

You can feed these tools context about your day to day life, and make them increasingly useful and personalized, in a way that you can't with vanilla ChatGPT/Claude etc without relying on some opaque memory system.

Here's a few things I'm using it for. A lot of things uses cases are fairly trivial but a bunch of small, daily QoL improvements add up:

- Calorie and macro tracker.

- Day to day todo list, obsidian wrangling.

- Tech support for family: I have a group chat we're all part of, and I've created OpenClaw skills for frequently asked questions, a memory system to remember questions, and a periodic 'quiz' based on previously asked questions to help everyone "learn to fish", bit by bit.

- Interface to Anki. Bit of a longer one here that I should write up, but it's easy to use it add cards to Anki on the go and review missed cards from today, ask clarifying questions, etc.

- One off reminders.

- Light mental health support for family / friends. An agent that remembers the cool things you've done lately and proactively reminds you of them, helping you zoom out a bit, has been helpful for those in my life whose brains, for whatever reason, tend towards more negative cognitive patterns. (There is definitely a more refined product here)

- General questions / curiosity; stuff I would otherwise use Claude for that's simply nicer in Telegram.

- Language studying support. I'm studying Japanese and OpenClaw helps me by studying whole sentences, tricky grammar concepts, kanji I commonly mix up - all backed by a well organized Obsidian vault. I add to this system constantly.

Re: Ask HN: Who is using OpenClaw?

#297

Post by yanhangyhy »

there is a huge push in china and (tencent). but the main purpose is for the token market, to bring more users as a consumer of tokens. but i dont see any useful outcome from this yet.

tencent is anxiety about it's progress about AI, as Alibaba and ByteDance is iterated much faster. so before it has strcit rules for QQ/Wechat( has 1 billon + users) for AI bot , but now it's open to openclaw (some tencent version i guess).

but it's still a toy for most people.

Re: Ask HN: Who is using OpenClaw?

#299

Post by snypher »

bdcravens wrote: post #111
redact207 wrote: post #39

When I saw Jensen's talk about how Openclaw surpassed React and Linux in terms of GitHub stars within a few months, I knew the whole thing was manufactured bot hype. No one can tell me a compelling use case. The whole thing seems designed around getting people to burn more tokens.

Every time I've sat down to consider how it could be useful, I can't think of anything that I couldn't build as a series of cron jobs and Playwright scripts. (even using Claude Code to do the heavy lifting at first, but then the tokens are spent and I don't have ongoing cost) I can only guess it's really not for "us", but rather for those who aren't afraid of technology but aren't really engineers.

>series of cron jobs and Playwright scripts

This is approximately the Dropbox reply.

>I can only guess it's really not for "us"

Exactly correct.

Re: Ask HN: Who is using OpenClaw?

#300

Post by zsiddique »

birdsongs wrote: post #177
zsiddique wrote: post #118

I still use it but totally not the "This one trick will supercharge your profits" kind of way. I do use it to handle task for me for a non profit I sit on the board like handle incoming emails and execute tasks I want to delegate but honestly could have had any our AI agent handle it. There was some manual task I told myself I would automate but never got around too, Openclaw made is just easier to prompt it in to be…

> I do use it to handle task for me for a non profit I sit on the board like handle incoming emails Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm genuinely curious but also a bit in shock. Do you really let an AI agent autonomously handle and respond to incoming board-level emails for you? I feel often I'm behind the times, but this makes me feel way behind the times. I still haven't picked up AI into my daily life. How…

So I dont let it reply to any email, there is a category of emails and questions we get that I already had a mental formula that now I have given the job to AI. It can riff on things and sometimes I have caught it go off the rails (AI math is still off and saw a pretty funny reply that told someone their request was denied as they asked for 3 billion dollar, which it was right but how it got the number was wrong) buts stuff that needs fast response and I have given the AI rules it needs to abide around it.

TBH they could be re-written as case statements and handled by a regular script but the AI part is half about how writing it was just a few prompts on how I regularly handle those kind of emails.

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