4 ms·

How to add a notifier LED to your computer

47 points by iuguy 16y ago

gsivil 16y ago
Very neat. It would be interesting to know if there is a only-software way to use the available lights on every laptop (battery, wifi indicators) as email notifiers. Do you think that this would be possible?
- iuguy 16y ago
  It should be doable, certainly for things like caps lock etc. Something like this (http://www.codeproject.com/KB/system/XPSLightFX.aspx http://www.codeproject.com/KB/system/XPSLightFX.aspx) might be up your street.
- cnvogel 16y ago
  Depending on your laptop model, there are a few LEDs that can be controlled, at least under Linux. IBM and ASUS seem to use stuff in /proc/acpi/asus|ibm ... The SD-Card interface in my Laptop exports a LED in /sys/class/led... (but it seems not to be connected to anything). So there is often one or the other thing installed, but how to control them differs.
wunki 16y ago
Although I applaud the engineering effort, I would never make this myself because it will proof a huge distraction. I would become a slave of my email.
- jrockway 16y ago
  The key to notifications is filtering. Don't make it light up for every email, only make it light up when an email that needs immediate action arrives. I'm going to set one of these up to monitor my work email. If someone sends a message to me (which is a small minority of messages I receive), it will light up. Then when I'm in bed and feel like hitting the snooze button, I can glance at the LED and determine whether or not I need to get up and check my email or not. laziness++.
windsurfer 16y ago
Nifty, but my laptop already has LEDs that I don't use, namely numlock and scroll lock. There are many Linux utilities that can blink these and turn these on.
- seabee 16y ago
  In the case of numlock on a laptop you need to be smarter than just toggling the light; many laptops overlay a numpad over the keys, so with numlock enabled hitting 'I' will send 5 instead.
  - joezydeco 16y ago
    You can toggle the lights without changing the actual state of the keyboard or driver. They're not hardwired together.
    - seabee 16y ago
      That's interesting - I tried to do this some years ago on Windows but found no way to toggle the lights independently of the actual state. Turns out you can, though: http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:7031 http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:7031
      - joezydeco 16y ago
        Back in the day I had some kind of plugin that toggled the caps and scroll lights based on ethernet Rx and Tx traffic. Nifty hack, but got distracting real fast.
davi 16y ago
For a long time I've wanted one of these, to serve as an "interruptility" indicator to others: green = "I'm looking at the internet, please interrupt me so I can possibly do something more useful", amber = "I'm working but okay", red = "only interrupt me if it's truly urgent". It could be programmable, so that (for example) it could automatically go to green when Firefox had HN as its frontmost window. Imagine a lab or office in which everyone used an LED in this way. It might be nice.
- jonknee 16y ago
  Sort of an "On Air" sign for hackers.
  - erohead 16y ago
    'Wired in'
    - __david__ 16y ago
      Maybe 'focused in' or 'zoned in'.
- kristiandupont 16y ago
  I bought one of these: http://www.brighthub.com/electronics/gizmos-gadgets/articles/83175.aspx?image=103657 http://www.brighthub.com/electronics/gizmos-gadgets/articles... and wrote a plugin for CherryTomato: http://www.beatpoints.com/cherrytomato http://www.beatpoints.com/cherrytomato - so now when I am in pomodoro, it goes red, indicating to my colleagues not to bother me. Works pretty well, though the Skype/messenger status seems more effective.
- jamesbritt 16y ago
  When I was with Happy Camper Studios we used to stick colored index cards up on our desk backboards or atop a monitor to indicate willingness to be interrupted. Red meant leave me alone; green meant open for interruption; yellow meant you can poke me if it's work-related. We looked around for lights and such (I wanted a traffic light) but they were too pricey so we went low-tech.
lutorm 16y ago
Do you really need the microcontroller to do that? He doesn't say exactly what the ATtiny does, but if it's just setting one of three LEDs based on two pins, it seems you could accomplish the same thing with a couple of logic gates? (But maybe these days it's easier to get a microcontroller than to wire up a few gates?)
- kazuya 16y ago
  Parallel printer port, which was often used for this kind of hacks, disappeared from PC several years ago. A USB device is usually the best for general purpose I/O. And I don't know how to build a USB device 'with a couple of logic gates'.
  - lutorm 16y ago
    Is it not possible to simply steer the USB pins high or low just like with a serial port?
    - kazuya 16y ago
      Interesting idea, but I believe it's very hard to trick the USB host controller into flipping pins as you intend.
    - Murkin 16y ago
      Nope, The controllers on both ends expect a fairly complex protocol (one which you have virtually zero control over - in software). Some hubs will allow you to selectively turn power on their ports (most just say they do). You can in theory stick leds there.
    - lmz 16y ago
      USB is a complex protocol, encoded using just two wires (the other two are power - +5V and GND). There are no pins you can steer high or low. See http://www.beyondlogic.org/usbnutshell/usb1.shtml http://www.beyondlogic.org/usbnutshell/usb1.shtml for more info.
  - jws 16y ago
patrickk 16y ago
The whole area of ambient displays is interesting. So much information is on screens now, but for certain situations an ambient display would be a lot more convenient for conveying information. See for example the ambient orb which can change colour according to what the Dow is doing, to name one example: http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/orb/orborder.html http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/orb/orborder.html Or the nabaztag, the wifi rabbit, who raises his ears to different triggers, such as, I don't know, a broken link on your website or a customer support email landing in your inbox. Pretty cool. http://www.nabaztag.com/en/m-3-nabaztag-what-does-he-do.html http://www.nabaztag.com/en/m-3-nabaztag-what-does-he-do.html
espinchi 16y ago
I'd like to have some light that indicates the status of our continuous build. However, I can only find solutions that require too much low-level hacking (like the original article, very cool but it'd take me ages), or are two expensive, or not customizable enough (Ambient Orb). Do you guys know of other solutions?
icefox 16y ago
rather than blinking, use morse code and output the message.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Whoever modded you down has no sense of telecommunications history or humor. The extra experience all those around you will have learning morse code to figure out what it is that you're telling them alone is worth an upvote ;)
zachrose 16y ago
It would also be cute to have the terminal bell hooked up to an actual bell.
dlsspy 16y ago
That was a lot cooler than I expected. I did a software-only one on my mac: http://dustin.github.com/2009/02/09/caps-lock.html http://dustin.github.com/2009/02/09/caps-lock.html

47 points by iuguy 16y ago

Very neat. It would be interesting to know if there is a only-software way to use the available lights on every laptop (battery, wifi indicators) as email notifiers. Do you think that this would be possible?

iuguy 16y ago
It should be doable, certainly for things like caps lock etc. Something like this (http://www.codeproject.com/KB/system/XPSLightFX.aspx http://www.codeproject.com/KB/system/XPSLightFX.aspx) might be up your street.
cnvogel 16y ago
Depending on your laptop model, there are a few LEDs that can be controlled, at least under Linux. IBM and ASUS seem to use stuff in /proc/acpi/asus|ibm ... The SD-Card interface in my Laptop exports a LED in /sys/class/led... (but it seems not to be connected to anything). So there is often one or the other thing installed, but how to control them differs.

wunki 16y ago

Although I applaud the engineering effort, I would never make this myself because it will proof a huge distraction. I would become a slave of my email.

jrockway 16y ago
The key to notifications is filtering. Don't make it light up for every email, only make it light up when an email that needs immediate action arrives. I'm going to set one of these up to monitor my work email. If someone sends a message to me (which is a small minority of messages I receive), it will light up. Then when I'm in bed and feel like hitting the snooze button, I can glance at the LED and determine whether or not I need to get up and check my email or not. laziness++.

windsurfer 16y ago

Nifty, but my laptop already has LEDs that I don't use, namely numlock and scroll lock. There are many Linux utilities that can blink these and turn these on.

seabee 16y ago
In the case of numlock on a laptop you need to be smarter than just toggling the light; many laptops overlay a numpad over the keys, so with numlock enabled hitting 'I' will send 5 instead.
- joezydeco 16y ago
  You can toggle the lights without changing the actual state of the keyboard or driver. They're not hardwired together.
  - seabee 16y ago
    That's interesting - I tried to do this some years ago on Windows but found no way to toggle the lights independently of the actual state. Turns out you can, though: http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:7031 http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:7031
    - joezydeco 16y ago
      Back in the day I had some kind of plugin that toggled the caps and scroll lights based on ethernet Rx and Tx traffic. Nifty hack, but got distracting real fast.

davi 16y ago

For a long time I've wanted one of these, to serve as an "interruptility" indicator to others: green = "I'm looking at the internet, please interrupt me so I can possibly do something more useful", amber = "I'm working but okay", red = "only interrupt me if it's truly urgent". It could be programmable, so that (for example) it could automatically go to green when Firefox had HN as its frontmost window. Imagine a lab or office in which everyone used an LED in this way. It might be nice.

jonknee 16y ago
Sort of an "On Air" sign for hackers.
- erohead 16y ago
  'Wired in'
  - __david__ 16y ago
    Maybe 'focused in' or 'zoned in'.
kristiandupont 16y ago
I bought one of these: http://www.brighthub.com/electronics/gizmos-gadgets/articles/83175.aspx?image=103657 http://www.brighthub.com/electronics/gizmos-gadgets/articles... and wrote a plugin for CherryTomato: http://www.beatpoints.com/cherrytomato http://www.beatpoints.com/cherrytomato - so now when I am in pomodoro, it goes red, indicating to my colleagues not to bother me. Works pretty well, though the Skype/messenger status seems more effective.
jamesbritt 16y ago
When I was with Happy Camper Studios we used to stick colored index cards up on our desk backboards or atop a monitor to indicate willingness to be interrupted. Red meant leave me alone; green meant open for interruption; yellow meant you can poke me if it's work-related. We looked around for lights and such (I wanted a traffic light) but they were too pricey so we went low-tech.

lutorm 16y ago

Do you really need the microcontroller to do that? He doesn't say exactly what the ATtiny does, but if it's just setting one of three LEDs based on two pins, it seems you could accomplish the same thing with a couple of logic gates? (But maybe these days it's easier to get a microcontroller than to wire up a few gates?)

kazuya 16y ago
Parallel printer port, which was often used for this kind of hacks, disappeared from PC several years ago. A USB device is usually the best for general purpose I/O. And I don't know how to build a USB device 'with a couple of logic gates'.
- lutorm 16y ago
  Is it not possible to simply steer the USB pins high or low just like with a serial port?
  - kazuya 16y ago
    Interesting idea, but I believe it's very hard to trick the USB host controller into flipping pins as you intend.
  - Murkin 16y ago
    Nope, The controllers on both ends expect a fairly complex protocol (one which you have virtually zero control over - in software). Some hubs will allow you to selectively turn power on their ports (most just say they do). You can in theory stick leds there.
  - lmz 16y ago
    USB is a complex protocol, encoded using just two wires (the other two are power - +5V and GND). There are no pins you can steer high or low. See http://www.beyondlogic.org/usbnutshell/usb1.shtml http://www.beyondlogic.org/usbnutshell/usb1.shtml for more info.
- jws 16y ago

patrickk 16y ago

The whole area of ambient displays is interesting. So much information is on screens now, but for certain situations an ambient display would be a lot more convenient for conveying information. See for example the ambient orb which can change colour according to what the Dow is doing, to name one example: http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/orb/orborder.html http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/orb/orborder.html Or the nabaztag, the wifi rabbit, who raises his ears to different triggers, such as, I don't know, a broken link on your website or a customer support email landing in your inbox. Pretty cool. http://www.nabaztag.com/en/m-3-nabaztag-what-does-he-do.html http://www.nabaztag.com/en/m-3-nabaztag-what-does-he-do.html

espinchi 16y ago

I'd like to have some light that indicates the status of our continuous build. However, I can only find solutions that require too much low-level hacking (like the original article, very cool but it'd take me ages), or are two expensive, or not customizable enough (Ambient Orb). Do you guys know of other solutions?

icefox 16y ago

rather than blinking, use morse code and output the message.

jacquesm 16y ago
Whoever modded you down has no sense of telecommunications history or humor. The extra experience all those around you will have learning morse code to figure out what it is that you're telling them alone is worth an upvote ;)

zachrose 16y ago

It would also be cute to have the terminal bell hooked up to an actual bell.

dlsspy 16y ago

That was a lot cooler than I expected. I did a software-only one on my mac: http://dustin.github.com/2009/02/09/caps-lock.html http://dustin.github.com/2009/02/09/caps-lock.html