Build an LED Beacon That Lets Others at Home Know You’re in a Meeting

Since the pandemic began, companies have instituted a work-from-home policy to help keep their employees safe. As a result, people are using video conferencing applications to conduct business or consult on projects. It’s not uncommon for family members or pets to interrupt those meetings, as they may not be aware they are even occurring at all, especially if you have a basement office.

To help notify others that you are, indeed, in a meeting, Nazmus Nasir of EasyProgramming has designed a novel “do not disturb” LED beacon that’s powered by a Raspberry Pi. Known as AIIM (Am I In [a] Meeting), the app detects if users are in a Zoom or Microsoft Teams meeting by monitoring their task list and sending a REST call to the Raspberry Pi, which will turn on a series of LEDs or NeoPixels.

Nasir explains how the AIIM system works by first running a Python script on a PC that checks the task list for Zoom or Teams. If the task exists, it sends a REST request to a Flask app hosted on the Pi that controls the LEDs, telling them to turn on, and if no task list is detected, it tells the lights to power down.

Nasir notes that the Python script runs on the Task Scheduler, so the effect is not immediate, but users can set the script to run every minute. He also states that the system will only work with Windows-based PCs, but has plans on making it available for Linux and Mac machines at some point.

Nasir has uploaded a complete walkthrough of the AIIM on his blog for those who would like to recreate his build.