Show HN: Tattoy – a text-based terminal compositor (tattoy.sh)
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Show HN:I made a word translation plugin for language learning.
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Show HN: I’ve built an IoT device to let my family know when I’m in a meeting
121 delduca 78 5/11/2025, 2:22:49 PM nullonerror.org ↗
Most of my awkward moments happened with family members casually cruising on my background while someone else had the word. Usually they can hear when I’m speaking and don’t enter the room.
(I've also got it parsing my Outlook iCal to do "meeting pending", "meeting maybe pending" but it turns out that Outlook's iCal is nonsense and parsing it is a fool's errand.)
I can think of at least 5 different companies that have tried to launch similar products, including a couple local startups. Most of them had some sort of manual control which everyone gets tired of after a couple days. The few people I saw try to use the manual lights would forget to turn it off, which turned it into a false alarm system, which quickly taught everyone to ignore it and peek their head in anyway because it was on so frequently that everyone knew it had no actual correlation with the person being in a meeting.
MuteDeck can also integrate with hardware tools, specifically the Plenom Busylight (https://busylight.com/), which actually got a lot more reasonable price-wise from my memory ($50). They have a couple of different types of light mount.
But for now I'm fine - I work from home, desk is in the middle of the room facing the door (so camera is aimed at me and far wall). If my partner walks in, she can see the camera status on my Insta 360 camera on my monitor which has a green light visible from any direction if the webcam is live.
But seriously I've wanted to build something like this for so long just never had the time. Going to definitely do it now. Love the idea of using the camera status to change the light.
Come over to my place for some beers.
It's worked like a champ. -- although every few major macOS releases, Apple changes the log string for camera on and off events.
Lutron smart plug
“On Air” sign off of Etsy
Script to watch log file indicating the state of my webcam. On changes, triggers an Apple Home command to turn the Lutron switch off and on.
On the contrary though, I've been fascinated with simple non-technical solutions to problems lately. For example, my buddy hates it when people use his driveway to turn around. He lives on a corner lot and the layout is prone to people turning around in his driveway, and apparently this is a pet peeve of his. He was talking about installing a gate, or a retractable pole that he could extend from a hole in the driveway, all these intricate technological solutions, etc. I gave it some thought and got him a street cone off eBay to put in his driveway. I leveraged human psychology over technology and it worked like a charm and only cost $30.
For your example, I would just put a do not disturb sign on the door. The flip around kind they have at hotels. It takes getting up, but just as effective and you get a few steps in. Of course you don't get to learn and build stuff, but like I said, I'm fascinated by simple solutions right now.
Agree, but it's an easy habit to pick up.
>If you don’t then it will start being ignored because its never accurate.
Yes, that pavlovian response works both ways. If people keep interrupting my meetings, I'll remember to put up the thing. Remembering to take it down when the meeting is over is more problematic though.
>It also doesn’t work if you get an impromptu call or meeting you weren’t planning for.
It does. I've never had a meeting where it didn't take me a few rings to get my AirPods in anyway.
I totally agree with most of what you said and I appreciate the technical solution presented. Like I said my mind is just into finding simple, non-tech solutions right now. Also another benefit of the simple solution is it costs probably a buck or two, cheaper if I made the tag myself with scissors, part of a cardboard box and a marker.
The problem with both solutions is it doesn't work for dogs who typically can't read. An even simpler solution just occurred to me. Shut the door when I'm in a meeting.
> This endpoint receives a JSON payload with a status of “on” or “off”, and turns the LED panel red or blue accordingly
It supports mac & Linux, and gets sent to an ESP32
This is a fuck off sign people, a very cool fuck off sign and that's all!
Nice work.
you are in a meeting
your microphone is on
your camera is on
customizable to work how you want (including setting it to "show" busy at will)
different color LED to mean different things if possible
This will serve to indictae to people around you whether they can interrupt you or pass in front of your screen etc.
It will also warn you the user when mic/camera is accidentally (or sneakily) on
The hard part is reliably detecting camera status. I’m currently using a utility called Oversight, but it is event-based and the dodginess of the Bluetooth connection means the device gets out of sync.
The python script takes a different approach, so I’m going to check that out.
I recently found a server status bezel and was thinking of making a remote status indicator out of it... maybe I should reduce the features of that project too.
Automations are really nice for certain things!
Versus, I dunno a door lock
They just explained why a door lock has absolutely abysmal reliability.
"Making sure" the complicated system works significantly better than a door lock is actually really easy to do, because the door lock is so bad.
so you get the simplicity of the sign with the automation desired by the OP.
Also, I have no idea how out of touch you have to be to claim that a simple sign that costs a few bucks is less convenient than something that requires power, another peripheral that requires power, and network access.
Why insist on being so negative? It's a cool little project. Just keep scrolling if it's not for you.
If you go ask random people whether they'd rather update a sign several times a day, or plug it in and be done for a year, what do you think they'd answer?
Until the network goes down or an element of the hardware fails, or you move and need to set it up again, or…
People liked the idea of smart homes, too, but they remain niche because you need the money or technical know-how to fix them when they fall over.
If the network goes down, you're not in an online meeting.
And this is someone that has the know-how.
An automated solution has a high start up cost and is much less convenient to set up or to “fix” if it goes down. But it has an almost zero operating cost, in that you don’t have to remember or perform any additional tasks for a meeting.
For me, automating small tasks I have to remember to do over and over and over is very valuable to me, as those are the things that take up valuable space in my “stay on track” mind and distract from bigger more important tasks.
dnd signs read "passive aggressive"
"Please take a seat, I'll be with you in a few short hours."
Priceless.
https://github.com/swills/onair
I thought about doing something similar during Covid, but mounted above the door frame.
Ended up getting a real office instead. WFH was great... until the toddler became tall enough to open doors :)
See also: https://github.com/JnyJny/busylight
but the core functionality doesn't require a server in the cloud, so by definition it's not IoT. just a nit though. it's still a cool little hack, no matter what you call it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_things
The core idea of IoT is that everything is capable of communicating on some network, whether that device is a fridge, a coffee maker, a dishwasher, a speck of dust, or a light bulb. The idea is that networks can connect more types of "things" than just general computing devices. The type of network and the reach of said network is sort of immaterial.
The author has created a specialized widget which communicates over a network. By definition, that is IoT.
Even the linked Wikipedia article points this out:
> "Internet of things" has been considered a misnomer because devices do not need to be connected to the public internet; they only need to be connected to a network and be individually addressable.
But the definition of "internet" from an early point has been "a network of networks".
It is by historical accident that many people understand the proper name "Internet" to refer to a singular and monolithic thing. For many purposes, The Internet is monolithic, as it is a global interconnect and everything speaks IPv4 and is therefore globally addressable, if not routable or reachable.
But I would say that a "network of networks" is whatever you make of it. If it is a network of Bluetooth devices bridged by WiFi, that's an internet. If it's a dozen networks of washing machines in disparate rooms, bridged by a service provider, but not reachable by anyone without an app, that's an internet.
So in reality, it's perfectly logical to have multiple internets, interconnected internets, and isolated internets. The fact that China runs a "Great Firewall" means that their "Internet" experience is markedly different from an internet from a non-China perspective.
Last, but certainly not least: don't forget that the "S" in "IoT" stands for "security"!