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Making a Linux-Based “On-Air” Light for My Home Office w/ Camera & Google Calendar Integration
I work from home. I wanted to be able to let my wife know, “Joelle is busy right now.”
This article will be fairly technical, but won’t give step-by-step instructions for everyone. It’s more meant to serve as an inspiration to other computer professionals — to determine how they might do something similar.
I love working from home, being able to have an environment that is set up exactly for me. Everything in my office, from the desk and chair I use, to the room’s lighting was designed to make me comfortable.
But I wanted something outside my office door to indicate I was busy that my wife could see — some sort of display — that was easy for both of us to use.
After all, my wife isn’t a fan of making unscheduled appearances on video meetings, and there are times I want to work uninterrupted.
Specifying My Requirements
Because I’m a technical professional, I naturally started by writing down my requirements. Here’s what I came up with:
- Mount outside of my home office door, on either the wall or the door itself
- Work with Linux
- Integrate with a Google Calendar (I.E. indicate busy when I have a calendar appointment)
- Turn on automatically when my computer’s webcam is in-use
- Allow me to manually override the indicator (I.E. turn the light on or off)
- The control program should be interactive terminal program
Of course, as I thought about this, I ended up digging into each one a bit more.
The “Busy Light” Itself
So, the first thing to decide on was the light itself. After talking with some IT experts at work, the Luxafor Bluetooth was suggested (this Luxafor Flag would also work as a wired solution). It met my requirements — it used a simple USB interface (so it would work on Linux). I could mount it outside my door. It’s wireless and battery powered, which is a huge plus — not having to drill holes in my house is a good thing! The battery lasts for a long time (weeks) between recharges…
