Busy Status Bar

This is at least the 3rd version of this product idea that I’ve seen in the past decade. Certainly the nicest design!<p>The first time I saw this was some friends of friends who were trying to make it into a startup. They quickly discovered that their users liked the idea of a busy light for the office, but didn’t like to update it on or off throughout the day. So after the first few days people just defaulted to leaving it marked as “busy”. Within a week or two their coworkers realized that the light was always on busy, so they started asking if they were really busy.<p>At that point, the entire busy light idea had been defeated.<p>This product looks more versatile. Being able to automatically tie it to meeting status or set pomodoro timers could make it more interesting.<p>However, I predict the same fate: Eventually people will realize the light is busy when the person isn’t really busy, and then return to the old habit of interrupting to ask if they’re busy.

Is there any message from the Flipper Zero people that this is actually their device?<p>It’s not mentioned on <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.flipperdevices.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.flipperdevices.com&#x2F;</a>, neither on <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;flipperzero.one&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;flipperzero.one&#x2F;</a> or their Instagram?<p>They have been plagued with peopling scamming people in their name before

If you&#x27;re looking for something with an addressable LED matrix in a clock style form factor, the Ulanzi TC001 [0] for ~$50 is worth having a look at.<p>Doesn&#x27;t quite have the same aesthetic but inside it&#x27;s just an ESP32 (flashed via the USB-C port) and there&#x27;s various mature open source firmware replacements. I use awtrix[1] on mine and it&#x27;s very easy to tie in HomeAssistant for doorbell notifications and that sort of thing. I did also knock up a Pomodoro app for it.<p>0: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ulanzi.com&#x2F;products&#x2F;ulanzi-pixel-smart-clock-2882" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ulanzi.com&#x2F;products&#x2F;ulanzi-pixel-smart-clock-288...</a><p>1: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;Blueforcer&#x2F;awtrix3">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;Blueforcer&#x2F;awtrix3</a>

This is a neat idea (and good looking product), but unfortunately the issue is the people who tend to interrupt you in the office ignore all explicit signals in my experience. Wearing noise cancelling headphones is an accepted sign of “in the flow, pls don’t interrupt” yet some folks feel like it doesn’t apply to them. Or they’d just stand next to your desk waiting for your attention. I’m pretty jaded (and probably still recovering from burnout) but these types of people made work unbearable. Usually an executive walking up to ask for the status of something even though there are other ways they can look at the status of something (JIRA, standup, slack updates).

This reminds me of my first job in London looking after the network of a recruitment agency. The consultants got headsets for the first time and one got so annoyed about being interrupted when on a call - because you couldn&#x27;t tell when people were wearing headsets the whole time - that she taped a big bit of card to the top of her headset saying &quot;ON A CALL&quot; that she could flip up and down depending on whether she was speaking to someone.

A bit dystopian turning people into a taxi-like system where you need an indicator to tell if they are vacant or not.<p>Regardless, I&#x27;m struggling to know the audience here. Is it an employee in the office? If that’s the case, it won’t solve any problem because most of the disturbances happen from your boss either calling about something or asking you to join another useless meeting. Your boss won’t care about your status simply because they won’t be collocated in the same office as you most of the time (not that they care about your online status anyway). For colleagues, after the first month or so, everyone will pretty much find the best way to approach others. If you still need a device for that, then there’s a problem in communication that you need a persistent device all the time. At home, you won’t need such a thing. So I don’t know who will find it useful; it looks gimmicky. What’s next, a hat that will turn a green light telling people you are approachable or in the chatting mode, and red when you are not?!

First the Nintendo alarm clock and now a sign that says &quot;busy&quot; - But it&#x27;s hackable!<p>You nerds will buy anything

Looks slick - the backside of the device does look a little &quot;busy&quot; and distracting if I had to stare at it on the top of my monitor.

I might buy this to use as follows.<p>I want a work-time tracker that lights a bright LED every 5 minutes or so, and as long as I&#x27;m there and working I smash a button and the light goes off for another 5 minutes. Some algorithm tracks the times I have hit the button and displays how long I have been working on said task.<p>I&#x27;m picturing something fairly cheap, like a stop watch or 3 button kitchen timer. A LED, a few buttons, a LCD display, a AAA battery slot, and an internal timing circuit is all that&#x27;s needed (and a case to hold it together).<p>This would basically be a stop watch that stops on its own if neglected, and I can imagine a few uses for it.

Nice!<p>For a home-rolled solution, I use a GE CYNC ST19 Edison Style bulb in a socket right outside my office door. I have it configured through Home Assistant (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.home-assistant.io&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.home-assistant.io&#x2F;</a>), and then use Hammerspoon (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hammerspoon.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hammerspoon.org&#x2F;</a>) on my macbook to make an API call to Home Assistant when the camera state changes.<p>If my camera turns on&#x2F;off, so does the light bulb. Works really well for letting my family know I&#x27;m busy in meetings.

If the big display is supposed to face away from you towards visitors, why are the controls oriented for them too. Surely you want to control the device, not your visitors?

It’s very pretty; but it’s also a little sad - that there could be demand for a big red flashing IRL “busy” indicator.<p>If I’m busy and if it happens so often that I can reliably buy a device like this, I would instead prefer to adjust my work environment to not be distracting, and to inform people that they should contact me at some other time.<p>I guess this may not always be an option.

The mode where it sits on a monitor and displays a status (&quot;on call&quot;) is very interesting. I think that could be simplified into a product unto itself -- but it would need to priced at &quot;office toy&quot; level -- so around $20-$40 USD.

Messing with this thing sure seems like a great way to stay focused.

I&#x27;m a sucker for metal things with greebling. The price seems pretty fair for how niche this is; I totally expected Teenage Engineering prices. (Also in the field of greebled single use devices with knobs and the mass of a blunt-force-weapon) Will totally pick one up for the hardware&#x27;s skookumosity and hackability poetential alone!

Why are the buttons are printed to be readable from the large sign side of the device and not the management side?

I got a giant usb-controlled traffic light at my first job in Germany for a customer project. They just let me keep it after the project finished, which made me repurpose it as a busy light and it worked wonders except that one person who didn&#x27;t get the hint.<p>Not exactly this but close: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cleware-shop.de&#x2F;USB_Tischampel_360" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cleware-shop.de&#x2F;USB_Tischampel_360</a>

When accessing this site I’m seeing a request to <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.virustotal.com&#x2F;gui&#x2F;domain&#x2F;e97b1e25-0407-48a5-988a-eb147e2afa6a.selstorage.ru" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.virustotal.com&#x2F;gui&#x2F;domain&#x2F;e97b1e25-0407-48a5-988...</a> which is getting blocked by my firewall.

Where does it draw power from? Does it have to be permanently connected or does it have a battery?<p>I have a lilygo T-Display (which costs less than a 10th of the Busy Status Bar), but I intended to use it untethered and freely movable on the desk. Sadly the battery life is so bad that I basically have to leave it plugged in all the time.

So this is a cloud connected LED sign that tells people to ~~fuck off~~ leave me alone. For 189 USD. This is the most Hacker News thing I&#x27;ve seen in 2024.

Back in 2013ish, I installed an industrial stack light at my desk (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.flickr.com&#x2F;photos&#x2F;masto&#x2F;54069311973&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.flickr.com&#x2F;photos&#x2F;masto&#x2F;54069311973&#x2F;</a>) and informed my coworkers that it would save them the trouble of walking all the way across the room to talk to me if I was too busy to be interrupted.<p>I am not advocating or praising this behavior; I was definitely going through my prima donna phase.<p>Later I became very timid about talking to people because the company culture was &quot;if I have my headphones on, please don&#x27;t interrupt me&quot; but everyone had headphones on all the time because the office was a nightmare of noise and distraction.<p>The ubiquitous slack (or equivalent) channel has a lot of downsides, but when weighed against the alternatives, I think I like it the best. But I&#x27;m very conscious of the fact that not everybody&#x27;s brain has the same attention system. I think that&#x27;s one of the reasons this little device has generated so many strongly worded comments. It&#x27;s probably neither the most rude thing ever nor the most helpful thing ever. What would be great for productivity and happiness would be if we could find a way not to force everyone to try to work under the same environmental constraints. (Aspirational: I don&#x27;t know how to do this.)

The display is a resolution of 72x16, or 1152 px. I counted; there&#x27;s a couple of frames as the first &quot;busy&quot; mention displays that the splashing animation lights the entire panel.<p>For comparison, the Ulanzi TC001 mentioned throughout this thread is 32x8, for 256 pixels.<p>I think if one was wanting to build something like this for themselves that just using a 7&quot; ips display intended for rpi would work as well. With 1024x600 resolution you could draw the chunky pixels if you wanted that aesthetic, and those can be had for like $28.

We used to have something similar at one of my previous jobs, a piece of paper that was red on one side, if red side was up on the desk, you don&#x27;t disturb them.

Nice product, I built a similar (but less flexible) system for an &quot;ON AIR&quot; sign that I have in my home office, as both my wife and I WFH, it is nice to have a visual indicator when one of us joins a call.<p>Software for Linux and Mac is here [0]. There&#x27;s also an ESP32 for the sign, but that part is trivial (MQTT -&gt; LED)<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;davidventura&#x2F;on-air">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;davidventura&#x2F;on-air</a>

This would take my $200 and just be another distraction of me trying to get $200 worth of value out of it.<p>I have a “Back in…” analog clock sign on my door. It was a dollar.

Where has the practice of putting the $ behind the value come from? I see it happening to £ too. I&#x27;m irrationally annoyed by this.

This is an instant buy for me. I&#x27;ve been looking for a &#x27;smart timer&#x27; that I can interact with programmatically and via Home Assistant for the longest time. I&#x27;d resigned myself to either building a terrible version myself or hiring someone to make a bespoke one. I&#x27;m super glad you&#x27;re making this!

Cool product! Still think Joel Spolsky was right that coders and engineers do best when they have an office with a door that closes though. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.joelonsoftware.com&#x2F;2000&#x2F;04&#x2F;19&#x2F;where-do-these-people-get-their-unoriginal-ideas&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.joelonsoftware.com&#x2F;2000&#x2F;04&#x2F;19&#x2F;where-do-these-peo...</a><p>I worked on a trading floor for several years - open floorpan is the right way for a trading operation to be set up because the whole nature of the job is to interrupt and be interrupted throughout the day. Not so for data science &#x2F; AI &#x2F; engineering work, unless it&#x27;s a help desk, IMHO...

&gt; Use of the terms “Pomodoro®” must be explicitly authorized by us. [1]<p>1: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pomodorotechnique.com&#x2F;pomodoro-trademark-guidelines.php" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pomodorotechnique.com&#x2F;pomodoro-trademark-guideli...</a>

I quite like the large format for a timer. I have some much lower tech alternative that works wonders for helping keep me focused on tasks: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.timetimer.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.timetimer.com&#x2F;</a>

I hit the &#x27;BUY&#x27; button while thinking &#x27;how much is this worth, or would people be willing to pay&#x27; and settled on about $60-80.<p>I&#x27;m obviously a cheapskate.<p>Sure, some people will buy it even it was $2000, but I think most people will be put off by the ~$200 price.

People be so busy they need to buy a hacker-friendly device and build bespoke integrations with it.

They need to make a miniature version that I can attach to my headphones because that is my busy indicator.<p>If I&#x27;m at work and need to focus, noise cancelling headphones are a must. If they&#x27;re off then I&#x27;m not busy.

Oh my, this is something I&#x27;ve been wanting to create. Something simple like an illuminated on-air sign outside my office door. This is awesome, and awesomely over-engineered.

This is an excellent idea. A similar approach, simpler, and cheaper solution for a non-open cube&#x2F;offices environment is a microcontroller-controlled Andon stack with color-codes for &quot;focusing&#x2F;DND&quot;, &quot;working&quot;, &quot;away&quot;, &quot;socialization desired&quot;, and possibly &quot;about to leave&quot;. This makes it possible to scan statuses simply without disturbing people by having to be in visual range of their desk.

It looks <i>very</i> neat, and I love all the physical controls, but it seems like kind of a device from another time where everyone worked in-person all the time. I work a hybrid schedule, with a mostly distributed team, and hotdesk&#x2F;hotel when I&#x27;m in the office, so I don&#x27;t have the luxury of a physical device to indicate my status, nor much use for one.<p>That said, I <i>really</i> want something designed like this that I can use.

Does this really beat a printed BUSY clipart taped to my screen? It&#x27;s far from the first product I see like this and the question is always the same.

I wouldn&#x27;t have thought this kind of thing would be useful, but after trying a few pomodoro timers I ended up with one (TimeTimer Plus) that is so large that it had the unanticipated benefit of notifying others how long I&#x27;ll be busy.<p>However, I will say it depends a great deal on your coworkers&#x2F;family as to whether they <i>care</i> that you&#x27;re busy when they want to ask you something.

This looks really nice!<p>I hacked together a script to accomplish a similar thing.<p>In my case, I only consider myself “busy” when my camera is on, meaning no one should enter my office.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;styfle&#x2F;bluetooth-lightbulb-alert">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;styfle&#x2F;bluetooth-lightbulb-alert</a>

In the monitor screenshot it occured to me that you need to choose back or front. But in most open offices you will probably need a 360 dispaly. A circle design that scrolls might work.<p>Also pomedero breaks are also busy. Having a break is something. Being interupted during that break is no better than being interuppted during the work part.

slightly off topic but ...<p>what I really want is a LED status display built into the top edge of my laptop screen (visible from opposite side too) that indicates -- when I am on a meeting &#x2F; when I am muted or unmuted &#x2F; when my camera is ON. (I should be able to turn them off when i dont need them and also have a manual override to turn them on as well -- so I dont HAVE to indicate my true status publicly when I dont want to -- I might even tie it to work only when on office&#x2F;home wifi only for instance)<p>In WFH situations this would be a life saver as other people in the house might walk into your room &#x2F; across your laptop in view of camera &#x2F; want to talk to you about random things .... If this kind of busy indicator is present, those people can be a bit more mindful of your immediate situation and avoid distrubance &#x2F; embarassment.

i thought someone had finally productized a clock i built for myself a long time ago, which, instead of showing you the time of day, counts down to your next meeting<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;jareklupinski&#x2F;count-down">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;jareklupinski&#x2F;count-down</a><p>google and apple dont make it easy...

This looks retro-sleek. Really cool design.<p>Does this work without cloud-connection? Does it work with the Flipper Zero? Considering it&#x27;s from the same company, I would think there is some synergy available. And it seems to lack a speaker. For some reason, I would love to play radio on it, not sure why..<p>EDIT Ok, found the speaker. Nice.

I can&#x27;t seem to tell: is this run off a battery? If so, any specs on the battery? Or is it powered via cable?

I want more physical devices like this with knobs and switches. Too many things are smooth glass rectangles

This is incredibly similar to a personal project I&#x27;ve been prototyping. I love that Flipper brought it to market and will buy one. A fully open source &amp; open hardware timer like this would be awesome. Cheaper DIY kit with 3d printable case. Does anyone know if one exists?

Back when I worked in an office and had to do deep thinking without interruptions, I&#x27;d string up a bit of yellow police-like tape that I stole from the SGI offices that were closed during Shoreline concerts that said &quot;SILICON GRAPHICS&quot;. Worked perfectly.

Another one: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kickstarter.com&#x2F;projects&#x2F;minee&#x2F;minee-habit-tracking-pomodoro-timer-kit-for-your-goal" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kickstarter.com&#x2F;projects&#x2F;minee&#x2F;minee-habit-track...</a>

Hmm shouldn&#x27;t the button labels be reversed if you&#x27;re supposed to face it away from you?

OMG, I love this. The one missing feature: a high quality camera. As soon as I saw the screen mount, I immediately thought of Continuity Camera, which is a great solution for people who want decent video without a full streamer rig.

Rad device! Not here to gripe about the actual price - and I realize it&#x27;s counter-intuitive since we say &quot;one hundred dollars&quot; out loud - but in the US, the dollar sign goes before the amount: $189 not 189$

I&#x27;m a bit dumbfounded by the price tag of $189. Am I wrong?

Doesn&#x27;t the large &quot;Start&#x2F;Pause&quot; button on top invite for any Product Owners or other managers to walk by, hit the button, and start talking to you? Knowing my manager would.

This looks really cool. Would have bought it but the price is a bit too high for me (I live in New Zealand as well so when you convert from USD then add shipping costs etc...).

It&#x27;s missing a credit card slot for paid interruptions ;)

I would buy it but first i would like to see a youtube video from someone that got his life change by this and things, i am yet not convinced is this life changing?

Really nice design!<p>Would love to have one but.. can’t find a use-case for it

I suffer from ADHD and the pomodoro timer part interests me. However, I am not sure if a pomodoro timer would help me. And $200 is an expensive gamble.

This seems like something I have been looking to add to my home office.<p>I would love to have a companion device that I can stick to the outside of a closed office door

Seems more like a novelty item than something to be used in an actual office.<p>Would love to code&#x2F;configure it with a middle finger emoji if I am in a call :)

Interesting toy, but in my world none of my friends are going to pay $189 for that. Even when the the dollar sign is on the wrong side.

Clicking on this page tries to XSS to a domain hosted in Russia (looks like an object storage backend) which is blocked by NoScript.

Finally, the productivity technique named after a $1 clockwork timer gets the fiddly software-and-cloud-based solution it deserves.

Anyone know how are the folks behind this and VC? This is a way too polish product and &#x27;production&#x27; for a startup...

Design is fantastic, every single detail is near-perfect. Unfortunately, the price tag is too high for this solution.

Lots of features mentioned there, I wonder how many of those will be ready on launch day and what will be delivered later.

This is cool, I&#x27;ve thought of building something like this for years now.<p>The price is a bit high, but glad to see it in the real world.

Back in the day at sparkfun we just wired up a safety beacon to an Ardoino and called it a day.<p>Nyan cat does not add any value.

Waiting room for someone playing doom on it.

Looks good, but... but... well, it feels a bit like a prostitute&#x27;s indicator made for the waiting males.

I love this idea.<p>If it was $100 instead of $189, I would order two (one for me, one for partner) as soon as they were available.

How can people just spam links of their projects and not get flamed and&#x2F;or get their posts deleted?

Out of interest is there anything similar to the Ulanzi TC001 but with a slightly higher resolution.

You would probably get interrupted more by people wondering what that thing is.

Looks like lametric alternative?

Since 2014 I dream about a product very very similar to this! Happy to see it built!!

I just work from home and leave my Teams status set to &quot;offline&quot; at all times.<p>I still receive messages, but only reply when contacting me through Teams is the agreed-upon approach. In other words, I simply don&#x27;t reply to messages that should really be emails or tickets.

Great idea for us remote workers that are returning to the office, thanks.

1. Looks very easy to hack. 2. Looks very easy to clone by competitors.

Very cool idea but very pricey for what it is. I build a LED 3-4 times bigger with power supply and Rasb Pi for less (and its programmable). However, this is more convenient as a single unit. I could see myself maybe buying this for $30, probably not more.

Add a cable with red&#x2F;green status light for home office door

I prefer the physical cubes (or other shapes) that you rotate

I love the design, really want to try this one.

Finally I can put my colleague on Verbal Probation.

Sucks to be people whose monitor faces the wall.

This design has very strong &quot;2020&#x27;s TV series based in the Star Wars universe&quot; aesthetic vibes... or is it just me?<p>Super well done website, and the product itself looks very thoroughly polished.

Don&#x27;t make me tap the sign.

It&#x27;s ugly and expensive.

With all the controls and lights to fiddle with, this <i>Busy Bar</i> hanging off a techbro monitor... is kinda like the <i>Busy Box</i> that was hanging off their crib.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.etsy.com&#x2F;listing&#x2F;1760749770&#x2F;fisher-price-busy-box-fisher-price-toys" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.etsy.com&#x2F;listing&#x2F;1760749770&#x2F;fisher-price-busy-bo...</a>

Cool but not $189 cool.

I kind of want to see a parody video in an office where whenever someone walks up to the guy&#x27;s desk with this thing, he flips it to &quot;Busy&quot; right as they walk up.<p>Comedy ensues from the awkward reactions and fake apologies.<p>&quot;Ah, sorry. I&#x27;m &#x27;Busy&#x27; now.&quot; (Smirk)<p>&gt; (Raises eyebrows) Uhh, okay sure Jim.

take my money

Separate of the product itself...I have to compliment whoever designed the landing page! I&#x27;m not a UX&#x2F;UI&#x2F;page design expert, but here is what i experience:<p>* the page loads quick - without overlays, distractions, etc. the page gets to the point, and fast<p>* immediately i see a description of what the product is...this might sound funny, but tons of product sites lack this most basic thing!<p>* In addition, the very brief video at the top shows a human hand operating the product...so i know even more about its functions, or at least how to interact with product<p>* a call-to-action of &quot;BUY&quot; is present and impossible to miss, positioned right after&#x2F;below the product intro&#x2F;description<p>* as i scroll down, the experience is NOT janky...its a smooth scroll down the page<p>* scrolling down informs me more about the product, including its features, different angles of the physical product (to help denote the features), they even squeeze in that there are developer options - so i&#x27;m tipped off that its not only a consumer device, but that it can be integrated with other systems, expanded by devs, etc.!<p>* they include more product photos in order to show how the product may appear and&#x2F;or be used in real life<p>* they even include photo and description of certain features - which serve almost as a very brief user guide, but again, i&#x27;m sure the intent is to show off the product&#x27;s feature set<p>There probably are other great things about this page that i have not noted here...But, again, kudos to the person&#x2F;team who designed this! I see many teams that are really intelligent, and might have great products&#x2F;service, but they don;&#x27;t include half the elements present here. Because while i don&#x27;t have interest in this product, damn, this an extremely compelling experience for their product! Cheers and kudos to all involved!!!!!!!

too expensive to justify the purchase, otherwise cool and seems to be rather good build quality (at least from videos).

Good but expensive, also does not solve for people behind or side of you.

Why is everyone complaining on the price tag? It is a product that someone made for profit just like everyone else here is trying to do.<p>Did Hacker News turn into Daily Deals?

All these sad people working in offices that need to defend their focus. I will never do that again.

TLDR: IRL Slack statuses.

Very Les Nessman-ish.<p>Whenever I see someone with a busy light in the office, I view it as an over-the-top, attention-grabbing, awkward human interaction and an explicit invitation to bother him or her.<p>It&#x27;s &quot;don&#x27;t make me tap the sign&quot; in electronic form.