Vibe Coding Lifesaving Technology for ~Fun~ and ~Profit~

April 27, 2025 - GenAI

What is Vibe Coding, Anyway?

If you haven’t heard the term yet, vibe coding is the modern art of building software with the help of AI — without worrying too much about traditional engineering processes like careful planning, architecture diagrams, or best practices. It’s coding by feel. It’s making things that work, fast, using AI as your co-pilot (or honestly, your chauffeur).

Sometimes vibe coding gets a bad reputation: people think it leads to spaghetti code, tech debt, or unstable projects.
But when used intentionally? It can unlock wildly powerful results — even in areas where lives are on the line.

Vibe Coding a Home Assistant Weather Alert Integration

Recently, I put vibe coding to the test by creating a Home Assistant integration that pulls severe weather outlooks from the U.S. Storm Prediction Center (SPC).

The goal?
Automatically monitor tornado, hail, and wind threats for up to eight days ahead — and make that data available inside a smart home for automations, alerts, or visualizations.

At first, I wasn’t sure if working with GPT-4o would save time or cost time.
But one thing became obvious fast: the creative momentum stayed high.

Rather than spend days agonizing over perfect data models, I simply built, asked AI for help when needed, debugged, and kept moving.

Let’s dive into what this vibe-coded system actually does.

How the Integration Works

What It Pulls In

The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center issues detailed severe weather outlooks every day. These include risk maps and probabilities for:

  • Tornadoes
  • Damaging winds
  • Large hail

Outlooks are issued for Days 1 through 8, with Days 1–2 offering the most granular detail.

My integration polls SPC’s publicly available data sources and creates Home Assistant sensors to track these forecasts automatically.

Sensors Created

For each day, the integration generates a sensor:

  • sensor.spc_outlook_day_1
  • sensor.spc_outlook_day_2
  • …
  • sensor.spc_outlook_day_8

Each sensor reports the categorical risk level for that day (e.g., “Marginal Risk”, “Slight Risk”, “Moderate Risk”, etc.).

Attributes Included

Every sensor includes the following attributes:

  • categorical_stroke: Hex color for the outline of your area’s risk polygon.
  • categorical_fill: Hex color for the fill of your area’s risk polygon.
  • issue: Timestamp when the outlook was issued.
  • valid: Timestamp when the outlook starts.
  • expire: Timestamp when the outlook expires.
  • friendly_name: A user-friendly label like “SPC Outlook Day 3.”

For Days 1 and 2, we get even more:

  • hail_probability: Hail risk percentage (including “Significant Hail” if applicable).
  • wind_probability: Wind risk percentage (plus “Significant Wind” when flagged).
  • tornado_probability: Tornado risk percentage (plus “Significant Tornado” when flagged).
  • hail_stroke / hail_fill: Polygon colors for hail risks.
  • wind_stroke / wind_fill: Colors for wind risks.
  • torn_stroke / torn_fill: Colors for tornado risks.

If the risk is not forecasted (for example, Day 5 where only general categorical risks are issued), it defaults cleanly to “No Risk.”

Real-World Applications

Once this data is inside Home Assistant, the automation possibilities explode:

  • Turn on outdoor sirens or alarms if a tornado probability over 10% is detected.
  • Send mobile push alerts when wind risk climbs to “Significant.”
  • Change LED strip colors based on categorical risk (yellow for Marginal, orange for Slight, red for Moderate or higher).
  • Pre-stage storm safety routines like locking doors, closing shutters, or activating backup power systems.

In a real-world emergency, even a few minutes of advance warning can be the difference between safety and disaster.

Lessons Learned From Vibe Coding This

1. You Still Need a Rough Map

Even while vibe coding, I needed a clear outcome in mind:

“I want Home Assistant sensors that track SPC risk categories and probabilities reliably.”

Without that anchor, I would have spiraled into endless AI prompt rabbit holes.

Vibe coding isn’t about no planning — it’s about just enough planning.

2. Trust, But Verify

Sometimes GPT-4o confidently suggested totally incorrect endpoints, or gave broken Python examples.

I had to verify every piece, especially for:

  • GeoJSON parsing,
  • YAML structuring for Home Assistant,
  • Error handling for missing or invalid SPC data.

Blind trust in AI would have left huge bugs hidden under the surface.

3. Polish Matters

After the first rough version worked, I spent real time:

  • Cleaning up attribute names,
  • Making color codes customizable,
  • Adding sensible fallbacks if SPC data is incomplete,
  • Writing a human-readable README (still vibe coded, but readable!).

Polish isn’t just aesthetics — in something safety-related, it’s crucial for trust.

Why Vibe Coding Might Be the Future (Even for Serious Tech)

Coding is changing.

In the past, building even a basic weather alert system required deep skills in:

  • APIs,
  • Data parsing,
  • Automation scripting,
  • Smart home ecosystem integrations.

Today, a determined builder can create lifesaving tech with AI as their thinking partner — even if they’re not a full-time software engineer.

If vibe coding can build a storm alert system…
What else could it build?

Final Thoughts: Vibe Boldly, Ship Carefully

Vibe coding is powerful because it unlocks creativity, momentum, and new possibilities.

But if you’re building anything that real people will rely on — for safety, health, security, or even just daily convenience — you owe it to them (and yourself) to:

  • Test rigorously,
  • Validate assumptions,
  • Polish your work,
  • Document your decisions.

In the end, the vibe can get you there — but the care will make sure it stays standing when it matters.

Stay tuned: I’ll be publishing a full installation guide and automation examples for this Home Assistant integration soon.
Because when it comes to weather alerts, it’s better to vibe now… and be ready later.