Show HN: I built a "Do not disturb" Device for my home office • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: I built a "Do not disturb" Device for my home office

#21

Post by lostlogin » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 7:24 PM UTC

teach wrote: post #13

> My router assigns dynamic IP addresses, meaning my server location kept changing. I've had a similar problem in the past. It turns out that most routers have a way to assign an IP address statically based on the MAC address of the requesting device without affecting the other DHCP devices on the network. I do this for my pi-hole, my NAS and my gaming PC.

> Dynamic IPs

I thought that step one of geekdom was assigning a few static IPs.

Ruining the home network while ‘optimising’ has happened a few too many times.

Re: Show HN: I built a "Do not disturb" Device for my home office

#22

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 7:48 PM UTC

NitpickLawyer wrote: post #20

apparent wrote: post #17

> One does not simply get the camera status on a MacBook. What you need is a sensor right near the green dot that detects whether it's turned on or not. Could use a full-blown camera, but probably a simpler sensor would work too. Only half-kidding.

> One does not simply get the camera status on a MacBook. ? OverSight [1] seems to work just fine. It pops up whenever something uses the mic or camera (the usage for this tool is to "monitor" for unwanted access from rogue apps). Since it's open source it should be possible to check how they get the status? - https://github.com/objective-see/OverSight

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: I built a "Do not disturb" Device for my home office

#23

Post by dhosek » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 7:50 PM UTC

NitpickLawyer wrote: post #20

apparent wrote: post #17

> One does not simply get the camera status on a MacBook. What you need is a sensor right near the green dot that detects whether it's turned on or not. Could use a full-blown camera, but probably a simpler sensor would work too. Only half-kidding.

> One does not simply get the camera status on a MacBook. ? OverSight [1] seems to work just fine. It pops up whenever something uses the mic or camera (the usage for this tool is to "monitor" for unwanted access from rogue apps). Since it's open source it should be possible to check how they get the status? - https://github.com/objective-see/OverSight

Skimming the code, I think it also monitors log events.

Re: Show HN: I built a "Do not disturb" Device for my home office

#24

Post by telesilla » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 7:52 PM UTC

Next trick - hook up a Recording sign when your DAW is in playback or you are live on the air.

Re: Show HN: I built a "Do not disturb" Device for my home office

#25

Post by dhosek » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 7:54 PM UTC

kjkjadksj wrote: post #10

Would love a way to disable the Do Not Disturb button on my macbook without flipping the f keys. Any ideas? Tap it accidentally and you miss all calls and texts for the day on your iphone…

There is (was?) a utility that would flip individual F keys on the Mac, although it’s been years since I used it and who knows if it still works post Apple Silicon transition.

TBH, I kind of miss the touch bar. Once they restored the esc key, it was often kind of useful while I tend not to use any of the keys in the F row (even those mapped by IntelliJ since the whole fn+F key thing is a kind of a pain and I seldom have call for the media buttons—actually I just realized I do occcasionally use the mute/unmute feature but that’s about it).

Of course my preferences are normative and anyone who does otherwise is clearly abnormal ;-)

Re: Show HN: I built a "Do not disturb" Device for my home office

#26

Post by jcynix » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 7:56 PM UTC

A simple, almost analog, solution is some nightlight which can be manually turned on or off, e.g. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FSL3Q7PW

Re: Show HN: I built a "Do not disturb" Device for my home office

#27

Post by rnoorda » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 7:57 PM UTC

I made a simple ON AIR sign with LEDs inside that I change to reflect what I was doing. Red means I am in a meeting or totally focused, blue means I'm working, but someone can interrupt me if needed. Green means I'm not working, come on in!

The only issue with my setup- I work from home. My wife does not. No one is there to care if they can come in or not. It was building something fun to solve a problem I never had.

Would do again.

Re: Show HN: I built a "Do not disturb" Device for my home office

#28

Post by pwg » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 8:03 PM UTC

nimbius wrote: post #6

"a lot of times my mother asks me if she can come in the room for reasons I won't get into" You've appeared to engineer your way around an interpersonal relationship that you lack the emotional, social intelligence and maturity to deal with. Welcome to the front page of HN i guess. you're well on the way to becoming a founder.

Spoken like someone who does not have a "second person" around while they are working from home.

Unless the "other people" (spouses/partners/parents/etc.) also work a from home job, they simply do not internalize that the work from home individual is "at work" in the same manner as if that individual were away in an office. And for some of them, no amount of explanation ever sinks in to fully internalize the fact that "when I'm working from home, I am not available to also solve all the problems you create for yourself throughout the day".

Most all of them, however, do actually pay attention to and understand the meaning of a "do not disturb" sign on the door.

Re: Show HN: I built a "Do not disturb" Device for my home office

#29

Post by shermantanktop » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 8:18 PM UTC

NitpickLawyer wrote: post #20

apparent wrote: post #17

> One does not simply get the camera status on a MacBook. What you need is a sensor right near the green dot that detects whether it's turned on or not. Could use a full-blown camera, but probably a simpler sensor would work too. Only half-kidding.

> One does not simply get the camera status on a MacBook. ? OverSight [1] seems to work just fine. It pops up whenever something uses the mic or camera (the usage for this tool is to "monitor" for unwanted access from rogue apps). Since it's open source it should be possible to check how they get the status? - https://github.com/objective-see/OverSight

That's what I use. Oversight runs scripts on events, which is great. However! now you have the problem of rapid events with overlapping scripts ending up with inconsistent state. I solved that with a lock file, but still get stuck states sometimes.

Re: Show HN: I built a "Do not disturb" Device for my home office

#30

Post by Terretta » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 8:28 PM UTC

kjkjadksj wrote: post #10

Would love a way to disable the Do Not Disturb button on my macbook without flipping the f keys. Any ideas? Tap it accidentally and you miss all calls and texts for the day on your iphone…

Wait — what button is this?

Oh: [moon|F6]

“If you are smugly thinking to yourself, “I knew that!”, Then, my question to you is, why didn’t you tell ME???” — https://www.podfeet.com/blog/2023/09/do-not-disturb-key/

It goes on to answer the next question:

“But that got me to wondering how long the F6 has had a dedicated Do Not Disturb function. I did some research and it looks like it was introduced when Apple came out with the first Apple Silicon MacBook Air in 2020. The previous keyboard shortcuts had F4 key dedicated to Launchpad, and if you had a backlit keyboard, F5 and F6 were dedicated to up/down keyboard brightness keys.”