ESP32 Enhanced On-Air Indicator Light
Avoid interrupted (or missed) meetings with this RGB indicator.
With many of us working at home these days, online meetings have become the norm. At the same time, other members of the household may not know that you’re on the “video phone” and could unknowingly interrupt an important meeting or presentation. To help avert such situations – and even remind you when a meeting is imminent – Nick Hehr came up with the ESP32-based “Smarter On-Air Light.”
The light uses an ESP32 development board flashed with Viam’s micro-RDK (Robot Development Kit) firmware. This interfaces with a webhoooks app running on Fly.io, which gets data from Zoom about your meeting status. Presumably other videoconferencing services could also be integrated, and code for the build is found on GitHub.
Besides the ESP32, hardware for the indicator is quite simple: just an RGB LED (non-addressable), wiring, and (optionally) a breadboard. It can also use a USB battery for entirely wireless operation, though you’ll need to mind the charge level. The housing is made of a small (Adafruit) box, cut out to say “ON AIR.” Printer paper is used to diffuse the LED light.
You can see the device in action in the video below. In addition to its primary on-air warning function, indicated by a red light, it glows green to let you know if a meeting has started, apparently without you. Finally, a blinking red light means you’ve left the meeting, and a blinking purple light means that the meeting has ended.