Making a Linux-Based “On-Air” Light for My Home Office w/ Camera & Google Calendar Integration

Joelle Tori Maslak
9 min readJan 16, 2021

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.

The wireless colored light I selected to indicate I was “busy”

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…

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Joelle Tori Maslak
Joelle Tori Maslak

Written by Joelle Tori Maslak

Programmer (🦋, 🐪, & 🐍), Gender Traitor & Shape Shifter ⚧, Geek 📚, Christian ✝, Motorcycle Rider 🏍️ , Puppy Parent 🐾, Wife 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩.