When AI Gets Expensive, Developers Build Real Gadgets to Track the Cost

Some developers are building small screens—like a dashboard in a car—to watch how much money their AI tools are using, moment by moment. One example: a homemade gadget showing Claude Code expenses on a tiny display. It's a shift from hidden bills to visible ones, helping teams understand the real cost of intensive AI work. This mirrors how companies learned to track cloud computing costs years ago.