Working from home can be pretty cool, but if you’re not the only one in the house trying to do it, the whole situation can feel like you’re right back in the office with all those walking, talking distractions. Except they’re in pajamas instead of business casual.
So, what’s the answer? Many times it’s not practical to stop what you’re doing, especially just to communicate that you’re busy. We suppose you could glare at them, put up your hand, or even give a dismissive wave, but a better solution might be this mood signal built by [gokux].
Through a simple web app, you can be red to indicate that you’re super busy, yellow to mean busy-ish, and green for let’s gossip about the cats.
This mood indicator is built on the Seeed Xiao ESP32-C3 and shows the given mood indicator on a small matrix of sixteen WS2812B LEDs. It’s powered by a 600 mAh, 3.7 V battery and a small push button switch. As usual, [gokux] has grade-A instructions for building your own version of this slick solution.
Would you like something more tactile and low-tech? Check out our own [Bob Baddeley]’s free/busy indicator from the lockdown days.
I love it, nice idea to do it at home. Not too sure how it wil go down with the wife :D
If you work from home your partner should respect that you are working and your time and energy is directed to that.
What’s interesting on that topic is I know more women than men that handle it better, because their job legally requires they block out their conversations with office doors and white noise generators.
The men usually have jobs that don’t legally require that so they get yelled at to do other things while they’re working.
I want an active Teams / microphone or camera light.
I was working on an application for my Mac to activate a device for just that purpose, but was issued a work mandates laptop at the time and it’s against the rules for me to do it. (Stupidly enough).
Honest question- never heard of a job that “legally requires […] they block out conversations with office doors and white noise generators.” What is that? And it is implemented more often for women, somehow?
Social workers and nurses (consulting) for specific examples.
No such legal requirements beyond not intentionally revealing confidential information through negligence. I worked from home with medical information and there is no amount of steps they could take to stop someone else in my house from hearing every single word I say. By your logic the receptionist at a hospital/clinic would have to follow those same rules. Everyone can literally hear everything said at the check-in.
To reply to ChipBoundary, yes, that’s how HIPAA works, especially at big-time hospitals. Smaller practices will often “just” follow HIPAA and bigger medical offices(the kind with corporate backers) will implement further privacy measures because they’re such larger targets for litigation.
If I had a remote therapist, the only way I would accept such a scenario is if they made loads of measures to keep everything strictly confidential, including from their children, spouse or relatives in the same building.
As Topman says, and many others. Essentially anything with confidentiality from business to education, medical to industrial. “Need to know” isn’t a a joke, it’s at the fire of liability for business and security for everyone.
“If you work from home your partner should respect that you are working and your time and energy is directed to that.”
Lollllllllzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Haha. sorry.
LOLLLLLLLLLZZZZZ. oops that one came out accidentally.
theory != practice
Lloooollllllll
(As I’m getting crap from my wife/business partner from across the room for reading an article when I’m supposed to be working on my computer instead, but she really wants me to deal with something to do with the cats..)
Everyone’s homesituation is different. Whether you’re alone by yourself, some pets, children, or roommates, & occasional neighbors either up or down in front or behind; someone or something will definitely interrupt your day! I have a heavy duty job & I sometimes have off days, but occasionally on that off day instead of getting a peaceful rest I get disturbed by the neighbors barking dogs e every time they’re let out or it’s the grader or loader with its back up sound clearing snow. And it’s occasionally someone’s home when your home so there’s never really any privacy or quiet time officially! 😂😂🙄 So you basically either need a separate compartment or an area where you can just be to get things done! 🫠
Yeah I think it’s more like ” don’t bother me I have another USA client to rip off”
That way when your spam calling free routers your teammates know not to walk up and ask if you want some Doritos….or curry jerky…whatever spammers eat over there haha
I have a out 18 years of work from home experience (full time) and my wife is a stay at home, o children. We have zero issues. She does her thing, I do my work. Occasionally she asks me for a helping hand with something, and only if I really have time and not in a meeting. Works 100% perfectly.
Nah I WFH full time now, in an office with the door closed and both my wife and daughter barge in often. If a closed door doesn’t say “I am busy” then a light won’t either.
Electrify the door handle.
thats why I am fleeing to the office on some days. ;)
Sadly not an option, as I am in a different country now (I used to go in to the office). Not really an issue for my company because I write financial software for them.
My typical method is to do some work when my daughter is at school and my wife is in the office, the problem there is that is I am not on during my company work hours, so I do a bit of overlap with their hours.
When I get down to crunch time I usually stay up later after everyone is in bed.
So far it seems to work, but time will tell.
the optical design is appealing but the Li-charging setup needs a little rework in my opinion as it dumps 4C into the 600mAh battery (best case it only pops the casing, worst-case it burns down the house?).
Reminds me of a research advisor I had 40 years ago. He had a traffic light on the door to his office. We debated whether a fire in the lab was sufficient reason to trespass on red.
Not to mention “M” – James Bond’s boss, whose red light meant he was busy and it was time to impress Miss Moneypenny.
Is it more cost effective to build 1 PCB with 3 sets of plain color LEDs and have a simple 3-position switch instead of wireless computer inside? I guess color temperature when selecting LEDs is a different problem. Could get 3x white flood lights for cellphone photography and put gel filters in for color. Many options*.
Obviously the software side needs to grab a metric of some kind to adequately leverage the iot-ness here. Maybe repurpose the “focus monitor” from an automobile? Or some of the brain scan work that has been done?
*However as others have mentioned the domestic programming may prove the biggest hurdle.
If you don’t want the remote control option, a pair of colored cards seems a lot easier and doesn’t need to be recharged.
This whole thing only makes sense to me if the indicator is not within reach of the person controlling the signal.
Or if making cool little things is an end in itself not merely a means to an end – don’t mix up hackaday with wikihow
That.
Or few color LEDS of similar hues, a hree-position switch, lotsa wires and maybe a pair of AAs with a 170 ohm resistor. Well under $3 in total, or maybe $7.
Or just program a script to do it with the RGB lights on the lid logo of your sick gamer laptop
Do you really need the BMS? Aside people’s concerns about it overloading the battery at its specced rate, the Seeed Xiao ESP32-C3 has an onboard charging circuit. Seems a lot more simple.
nice, that feature I did not catch on the XIAO.
I am so confused, how is this supposed to stop people from video calling you?
I did something with an Arduino, has I was an adjunct, teaching from home. I put a neopixel ring on my door frame to my office with a button on my desk. Humans have an amazing ability to stop noticing things….
I’ve been using commercial devices similar to this for years. It’s great. My teenage kids even learned to respect it. At my last job, one was given out for use in the office, pre-pandemic. Brought it home when we shifted to WFH, then got my own after I left that job and had to give it back. The only problem with the commercial one is lack of integration with Google Calendar for automatic switching to free/busy based on calendar.
Both my wife and I work from home. My office is in the game room upstairs, and hers is a good size nook in our master downstairs. Because the rest of the bedrooms are upstairs, I wanted a visual way for her and the family to know to not make noise when I am in meetings. They can ask if I’m busy the rest of the time. So, I bought off of Amazon a recording/podcast kind of light and hooked it up to a smart outlet that I can control by telling Google to turn it on/off.
The red light can be seen clearly. And although it is relatively dim, its reflection can be seen off the walls so it can be seen from the downstairs.