Break Time Is Calling On The Rainbow Connection

Like some of us, [Mister M] is prone to staying glued to his seat too long in this new era of working from home. And you know what they say about a body at desk — it tends to stay at desk until it absolutely must rise up to find food or use the restroom.

Thanks to this nifty new break time reminder, [Mister M] has a third call to answer that demands he get up. Every hour, the NeoPixel ring in this old dial-deficient phone fills up completely and switches over to an attention-getting rainbow animation. If [Mister M] stays seated, playtime is over. All the lights start flashing red, and the phone starts beeping incessantly until he walks across the room and either pushes the momentary button or lifts the handset to reset the timer.

We love that [Mister M] incorporated all of the phone’s original inputs and outputs into this project, because it’s such a cool old dog and bone. No need to drop a dime, just whistle at the break button to check out the build video.

This grille-faced phone was probably part of an intercom system. Incidentally, you can make an intercom system with two standard-style phones of this vintage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvHFPuEaWAI

6 thoughts on “Break Time Is Calling On The Rainbow Connection

  1. I’m kind of disappointed that he took the real bells out, but I guess it would take more to ring the real bells. Still if you paint it red it would make an awesome movie prop.

    1. …if it ever had real bells. The YT video description has links to the Instructables project that doesn’t mention ‘bell’ or show any.

      One the side, is that a Muppet Movie reference on HaD?

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