3 ms·

Colored lights (LIFX) change color automatically during the day. mostly thanks to their scheduling, though the one in the foyer changes color based on both the

Colored lights (LIFX) change color automatically during the day. mostly thanks to their scheduling, though the one in the foyer changes color based on both the time of day and on the temperature and rain forecast - during the day I can glance at the light and know how to dress. That happens with a Python script on my computer, which I should really move to the Raspberry Pi in the living room that I could leave on 24-7. When I make a blog post, my WordPress installation automatically posts about it to assorted social media sites. And when I post a new page of comics I can make it automatically calculate the next day it would come out on, based on the schedule I’ve chosen (new pages Tuesday/Thursday, unless Shit Happens) and on how many pages are already in the queue, if any. When I put together a book of my comics, I use a small AppleScript that runs over a directory and outputs a sequentially-sorted CSV of file names, which I can dump into an InDesign template.

sumedh 8y ago
I want to do something similar with my Lifx lights, they would glow green in the morning if the train is 10 mins away, they would glow red if its 5 mins away which means I wont be able to walk to the station and catch it.
- egypturnash 8y ago
  My little light script is here if you want to see how it's hitting an a web API for the weather, then talking to the bulbs: https://github.com/egypturnash/weatherlight https://github.com/egypturnash/weatherlight It ain't pretty, and the menubar app part of it stopped working a while back, but it still does the job.
  - sumedh 8y ago
    Thanks, will play with it this weekend.
- senatorobama 8y ago
  You need to follow a gradient
  - egypturnash 8y ago
    My experience with using light color as an information source says that's a bad idea. You can only reliably communicate maybe about eight or ten states with one light before you start getting into "is this yellow or orange, I can't decide". So maybe "you'll just miss the next train if you leave right now" and "you'll catch it if you leave right now" could be augmented with a third state, "hey you'd better leave RIGHT NOW if you wanna catch the train". But a slow glide from red to green is going to have too many interim states.

sumedh 8y ago

I want to do something similar with my Lifx lights, they would glow green in the morning if the train is 10 mins away, they would glow red if its 5 mins away which means I wont be able to walk to the station and catch it.

egypturnash 8y ago
My little light script is here if you want to see how it's hitting an a web API for the weather, then talking to the bulbs: https://github.com/egypturnash/weatherlight https://github.com/egypturnash/weatherlight It ain't pretty, and the menubar app part of it stopped working a while back, but it still does the job.
- sumedh 8y ago
  Thanks, will play with it this weekend.
senatorobama 8y ago
You need to follow a gradient
- egypturnash 8y ago
  My experience with using light color as an information source says that's a bad idea. You can only reliably communicate maybe about eight or ten states with one light before you start getting into "is this yellow or orange, I can't decide". So maybe "you'll just miss the next train if you leave right now" and "you'll catch it if you leave right now" could be augmented with a third state, "hey you'd better leave RIGHT NOW if you wanna catch the train". But a slow glide from red to green is going to have too many interim states.