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  Landing Page

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  Guidance on Web app working

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  Appliance category

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  AI wizard to assist user in buying decision

Inspiration

My parents spent ₹45,000 on a washing machine that Pune's hard water destroyed in 6 months. The reviews never mentioned hard water. The YouTuber was from Delhi. The 4.2 stars meant nothing.

That one moment revealed a critical problem - Indian buyers face challenges no existing indian ecommerce online apps review site understands — voltage fluctuations, extreme heat, hard water, power cuts, joint families. ApplianceWise was built to fix this.

What it does

ApplianceWise is India's first AI-powered, one-stop appliance buying guide.

🤖 AI Recommendation Wizard Answer 4 questions (appliance, family size $n$, home type, budget $B$). Gemini AI returns your top 3 matches using:

$$S = 0.40R + 0.30P + 0.20B_{fit} + 0.10N$$

Where $R$ = rating, $P$ = positive sentiment, $B_{fit}$ = budget fit, $N$ = Indian needs match. 😊 Sentiment Analysis 10,000+ Indian reviews classified as positive / neutral / negative — surfacing real concerns like hard water damage, voltage issues, and summer heat.

💰 Live Price Comparison Real-time prices from all 4 major Indian retailers:

Best buy link along with fastest delivery dates

🔄 Side-by-Side Compare Compare up to 3 products. Best value highlighted. AI Verdict explains which to buy and why.

How we built it

Price caching with ISR:

const res = await fetch(url, { 
  next: { revalidate: 3600 }
});

Prices refresh hourly — keeping data fresh while staying within SerpApi's free tier.

Challenges we ran into

Brand images blocked hotlinking Sony, Samsung, LG CDNs block external image requests. Fixed by switching to Unsplash CDN with onError fallbacks showing the brand name.

ESLint failing Vercel builds 6 lint errors blocked production deployment despite working locally. Fixed with targeted .eslintrc.json rule overrides.

AI wizard showing wrong category Missing data.category in useEffect dependency array caused stale closure — recommending TVs for an AC search.

useEffect(() => {
  if (step === 4) {
    const filtered = products.filter(
      p => p.categorySlug === data.category
    );
    if (filtered.length === 0) { setStep(1); return; }
  }
}, [step, data.category]); // fix: added data.category

Buy links losing the user Store links were opening in the same tab. Audited every <a> tag and enforced:

target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• 🇮🇳 First India-specific appliance AI — understands voltage, hard water, heat, and joint family needs that no US tool covers
• 🤖 Gemini match score — personalised recommendations with transparent reasoning, not black-box suggestions
• 💰 4-retailer price comparison — Flipkart, Amazon, Croma, Reliance Digital in one view
• 😊 Sentiment at scale — 10,000+ Indian reviews classified and visualised
• ⚡ Ships as a real product — live on Vercel, open on GitHub, free for all Indians
• 🆓 Zero paywalls, zero ads, zero bias — pure consumer value

What we learned

Technical

• ISR revalidate caching is the right pattern for expensive external APIs at scale
• React useEffect dependency arrays cause subtle but critical bugs when incomplete
• Prompt engineering is architecture — Gemini's output quality is a direct function of how well Indian context is encoded in the prompt

Product

• India is not one market — a recommendation for Mumbai differs from one for Rajasthan
• Indian buyers mention service network quality far more than Western buyers — a uniquely Indian purchase concern that shaped our review analysis
• Trust is the real product — consumers have information overload, not information shortage

What's next for ApplianceWise — India's AI-Powered Appliance Buying Guide

• 🌐 Hindi and regional language support
• 🔔 WhatsApp / email price drop alerts
• ⭐ User-submitted verified reviews
• 📱 PWA for offline browsing in low-connectivity areas
• 🏘️ New categories: Geysers, Microwaves, Dishwashers, Air Purifiers, Vacuum Cleaners
• 📊 30-day price history charts

🌐 Live: https://appliancewise-rht-raj.vercel.app 🐙 GitHub: https://github.com/rhtmundke-eng/appliancewise

Built With

• bolt
• chatgpt
• claude
• co-pilot
• gemini
• google
• googlestudio
• next.js
• openrouterapi
• tailwindcss
• vercel
• windsurf