I made a thing: Simple meeting status light for my office

Like a ton of other "knowledge workers" (snicker, snicker), I found my career transitioned to one where I work from home, which is frankly, pretty awesome. I'm deeply grateful for the return of my commute time, and I fervently adore the ability to just crack open my office door and say hi to my wife or kids, get a snack, or take a meeting from the exercise bike – it's really great.

One "challenge" of working from home is really not very much of a challenge at all – sometimes I have meetings! Sometimes my kids want to say hi! Sometimes those things happen at the same time – oh no!

One of my great faults is that my first instinct for responding to any problem is to try to solve it via technology:

Kid wakes up too early to watch TV? Put the TV on a schedule via a smart plug!
Kid still wakes up too early to play with the smart display? Put the smart display on a schedule via a smart plug! 😵‍💫
Keith keeps forgetting to turn on and off Christmas lighting? Put the lights on a schedule via a smart plug!

(I think these are all the same solution. Darn.)

So, I rigged up a very simple solution to my welcome-but-untimely office intruders, using a smart strip of LED lights that I attached to the bottom of the generally non-moving side of my office door. Essentially, at 8AM (when my work day generally starts), the lights turn on with a green hue, and at 5PM, they turn off again. In between those hours, I use IFTTT to sync the lights to my work Google Calendar. So, when a meeting starts, here's what the kids see:

They are also rigged up via Google Home, so if I'm focused at work, but not in a meeting, I can instruct my Google Home to turn the lights yellow or something.

I'm trying to find a balance between being super available to my kids and wife, while also making sure that I'm able to give my employer and colleagues the attention that they deserve. I don't want to automate away family interactions; through some valid lenses, this is a sort of dystopian solution! On the other hand, having to tell my kids over and over that "Dad is busy" was not good for any of us, and I'm hoping this is a little gentler than hearing "no" all the time.

I just installed these today, but I'll post back with some results on how it goes with the kids.

Update: Some folks have been asking for more details on what I used to make this happen! I used this particular TP-Link Tapo smart LED strip that was like $20.

They work natively with Google Home and IFTTT. Then, I used IFTTT's pretty simple integrations for Google Calendar and IFTTT to make applets that tie the lights to my calendar.

Here's the integration for when a meeting starts:

Turn Tapo light strip red when a meeting starts

Sets Tapo lights red when a meeting on your calendar starts.

IFTTTIFTTT

And here's the one that flips them back to green:

Turn Tapo light strip green when a meeting ends

Turns your Tapo light strip green when your meeting ends.

IFTTTIFTTT

I also rigged up very simple ones that turn my lights on at the beginning of my day and off at the end of my day. After one day of use, they seem to be working very well!