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Doing this every day is a problem.

Doing it 1-2 days/week is the difference between being able to get some focus time to deliver something of value, and just being an internal search engine.

My job has lots and lots of calls. I am happy to leave most of my calendar open. But most mornings, and at least one full day every 2 weeks is mine, and no, you can't have it, you're not entitled to it, it's important to me I have that time to actually do focus work.

> the geniuses that block off their whole day everyday on their calendar

as someone who leaves themselves open to hear out others with their "hey do you have a second to check this out" ideas

y'all are missing out

I’ve blocked out 2 4 hour blocks for some work mandated sabbaticals for months now. It’s been great! People now remember the days and which block they can’t contact me, and work around it. It’s become such a successful thing that we recommend this to others within my team.

Just put "literally" before it.

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It is an LED screen that I can put anywhere. While the intention is as a busy screen, it can be utilized in a variety of ways. So, ultimately, why not?

A stopwatch is a good place to start if you want something readymade and ubiquitous; get a few cheap ones and label them per customer.

When I did that kind of work though, I had a time tracker application that kept track of which window was in the foreground, based on what project I had active in Eclipse (at the time) I could give a rough guesstimate about what project I spent how much time on.

Maybe Timery? I've never tried it since I learned about it while laid off but I will definitely use it when I get a job.

https://thesweetsetup.com/apps/best-time-tracking-app/

I use an app called aTimeLogger on Android that just pins a little notification with a play/pause and stop button, and a little time counter. When I start working, I hit play. When I take a break, I hit pause.

Been doing this for years. It's great to help me focus on working when I'm actually working, and doing other stuff when I'm not actually working.

Looks like the app is available on iOS too if you're an iPhone user.

I wrote a free app [1] for the Stream Deck (not Steam Deck!), with which I can start Clockify timers with a press of a physical button. Yes, Clockify can do more than just checking in and out, but for the simple use case it's free to use and has an API.

[1] https://github.com/eXpl0it3r/streamdeck-clockify

Nobody will mark oneself as not busy, either because the management might be taking note or one truly doesn't make time to be open to more work.

It looks like to me that due to previous solutions, people try to improve upon in the same domain. May be the premise of the solution is wrong.

Staring into space is what I do when thinking. Lots of my job is thinking. Maybe that's why folk ignored my busy indicator.

You'd need to have it be host specific. Stack overflow? You're researching a problem and still might be elbows deep in a problem. Bluesky or FB? Not so much.

That’s the problem: If the light is always on, or almost always on, then it quickly loses meaning.

Unless the user actually adds green available time at regular intervals throughout the day, people learn that they have to ignore the red busy light and ask.

Sounds like a fast to way to get nicknamed “Larry” around the office.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dont-make-me-tap-the-sign

Side note to people reading this: in general, when suspecting a scam, don't blindly trust anyone who says "I'm ... and I confirm this is OK". This may be the same very person who you're suspecting of original scam ;). Not a theory, I have cases looks this every other week in my dayjob.

In this case I believe the post is legit.

Put a CO2 + temp/humidity sensor in there and it's a no-brainer. The sensors could be nice to hack on too.

It looks gorgeous, especially the hardware. I think the typeface on the hardware and the retro busy text could be further refined, but it is very very cool overall.

A version of this that would be useful for WFH or private offices is an 'on air' device that you could mount outside your office door, which means it's not connected to your computer and could potentially run on a battery for a week+ or run on usb power directly.

People want to come in sometimes to access a closet, but they don't know if your in a meeting, so it would also need to detect if your in a meeting, and the microphone being on or off is not enough because people often mute themselves. Calendar access is also not enough because sometimes you start a meeting without a calendar thingy, and also knowing if your 'on air' with an open door can tell them if they have to be worried if they could be on camera if they walk by the door.

It could be a very simple LED, it just needs a good agent on your desktop. Also a 'yellow light' for an upcoming meeting in a couple minutes (so this is where calendar access is useful) or an orange light for camera & microphone off.

I'd love for this thing to be feature-flexible enough to use it for the exact opposite: running TV/screen/videogame timer for the kids!

Looks great, love the dial/switch big button combo, and the opportunity to buy something attractive that's a "hackable screen with buttons" is very high for me.

Another likely use is to be a controller for audiobooks or music in our rumpus if I ever get a hold of one. Again, drivable by kids and oldies who visit is a huge plus.

Is there any message from the Flipper Zero people that this is actually their CEO? :)

Hi Pavel Zhovner. I'm afraid you're not doing a very good job of keeping it secret.

What are the odds of a kit version woth a lower pricetag and some assembly required?

This is better and more useful than the FlipperOne, I think.

Looks nice. We should have known from the way it looks that it is either you guys or Teenage Engineering.

unrelated: how come you can't buy your device on amazon?

> Главная идея в том, чтобы сказать людям “отъебитесь на 15 минут” еще до того как вас отвлекли.

This explanation is much more forthright.

That doesn't prove anything.

Zero, because there's no checkout page yet. Just a mailing list for status updates.

I'm 97% sure 0 people bought this thing, seeing as it isn't available to buy yet.

Caveat empor my dude.

i'm building a low volume product. if you add the cost unfortunately you will see it's impossible to do something of good quality and low volume with much lower price.

you don't only add the sum of the electronic parts, but materials, r&d, payment for the one who does the assembly, marketing, taxes & accounting, shipping package, refunds and defects, payment for someone to produce it or the usage of your existing equipment, etc. if you add all of these, you will see that it's not cheap.

"Identifying Different Musical Instrument Sounds Using Fourier Analysis in LabVIEW" Rather than "ML" du jour, I would say that a fast Fourier transform would get you sufficient data to determine if practicing or talking or silence.

The adversarial child would be playing recordings into the timer within minutes no?

Hate to burst your bubble, but as an amateur musician I fear this would backfire, or at least fail to result in any improvement in playing ability. Silence and time are absolutely critical to playing music. By analogy, measuring 'time spent drawing bow across strings' would be as useful to a violin student as 'time spent pressing foot on accelerator' would be to a driving student!

From my own experience learning to play the organ, I have improved least when I play relatively fluidly, practising with music well within my abilities. On the contrary, the most improvement has come when I've slowed down, allowed myself to count the timing, repeat sections, read the sheet music more carefully or even just take a break entirely. So although silence won't improve one's playing by itself, I think it's a natural by-product of an effective studying technique that, if at all possible, shouldn't be discouraged with such a timer.

The ESP32S(1?) that's inside is fairly powerful as embedded mcus go but that said...

If you need grunt and you don't specifically want the aesthetic of an led matrix panel you'd probably be better off with an old phone or tablet based thing.

The TC001 afaik doesn't have any mics inside anyway.

Could be even cheaper as a string of addressable LEDs + some arduino board.

But quite some people are happy to pay the extra $174 for not needing to hack together software, a housing, physical controls, etc.

Very simple if you flash it with awtrix, it has a neat JSON API.

I’d like it to have buttons (the apps Ulanzi mention are view-only).

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I wouldn't swear to it but from mine it looks like there's a grid of light guides between the led PCB and the front screen to prevent any cross bleed. The front screen is translucent but not transparent (think heavy tinted window) acrylic which gives it the muted look.

It's pretty good hardware wise, it would be hard to knock up DIY for $50 even just in BOM.

Edit: teardown in German https://youtu.be/-Dn3A5V8ZPo @ 04:30

> custom acrylic

While I'm not an expert, my own experimentation suggests this is correct

It has a small piezo buzzer, and you can use it to play RTTTL sounds. https://blueforcer.github.io/awtrix3/#/sounds

I have to warn that it sounds like hot garbage though. The neat thing with ESP32 devices is that you can make it sound okay using its built in 8-bit DACs, or great using I²S.

Speaking of hardware hacking; you can also get POE/LAN adaptors for the ESP32, if you have free hardware pins left for it.

The “Live on air!” sign that triggers with Zoom (or Slack) is a very common usecase.

I wonder why it’s not better addressed. It needs to 1. be out of the office, on the door, 2. therefore bluetooth, 3. always on, and 4. it’s simple on/off light!

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Some people also wear them the entire day.

The flip side is it’s bad for actually getting focused work done.

It really does depend on office culture. Some people might be more reasonable if you communicate directly. I don't think it would go down well everywhere if you state "Hey! No talking to me if Mr. Smurf is on the table!"... Mr Smurf might have an unfortunate accident sooner rather than later.

Wait, I thought PMs were explicitly not allowed in standups, and that standups are explicitly not status meetings.

You absolutely do. Many coworkers will bug you to ask instead of doing their own research, bug you to chitchat, etc.

They can always book time with you, send an email/IM, etc if there's something they can't resolve on their own.

You have your own deliverables and being interrupted every 10 minutes with inane questions that a web search or a look at the internal wiki/KB would have resolved is not a productive use of anyone's time.

Also, forcing them to wait produces better quality, better researched questions as hopefully they should make some attempt to resolve things on their own.

It's about politeness. If somebody took care to produce a sign asking to avoid interruptions, I will think twice whether my inquiry is both urgent and important. If it is not, I will postpone it. If it is, I'll beg for pardon but interrupt.

But no, a context switch required for uttering a few words can absolutely topple the tower of concentration somebody has spent last half an hour building. Certain occupations, engineering among them, require ingesting a large amount of context and making sense of it before productive work can start. My lack of patience with a question which I could answer with 10 minutes of research (or asking someone else) may cost my colleague an hour of lost productivity. Being mindful of this helps everyone, including yourself when the roles are swapped.

All of this entirely depends on your company culture. And for every choice you make (conscious or not) there are consequences.

Perhaps the culture within the company / department / team is to allow interruptions in the name of "collaboration". Hopefully the increased value gained by "collaborating" that way is worth the cost. Some of that cost is time (productivity), some is people literally quitting. Eventually you're left with a company full of people who don't mind being interrupted and I would assume are interrupters themselves, and I'd assume this effect is exponential, causing lower and lower productivity.

As a manager, you can't have this culture and then also complain about the lack of productivity, missed estimates, etc. (Well, you can, but that in turn will increase stress levels and unhappiness and cause more people to quit.)

Your competitor who sees collaboration is possible with planning, proper async communication channels, and some specific culture choices will have a nicer environment and happily hire away your most talented and knowledgeable people.

> where tens of hours of work will be completely lost if your concentration strays to show your face to another human being and utter a few words.

After being interrupted, it takes on average over 23 minutes [1] to get back on track. The average time lost is almost 3 hours per day, or 60 hours per month [2].

[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/944128/worker-interrupted-cost-t...

[2] https://www.talkboxbooth.com/post/shocking-cost-workplace-di...

> You're not meticulously stacking the last card on top of a 10 ft house of cards exhibit where tens of hours of work will be completely lost if your concentration strays to show your face to another human being and utter a few words.

You have no idea.

Thank god we have this WFH thing now. I can build this house of cards without anyone interrupting me saying I'm not building a house of cards.

I hope you're not a manager, because this is horrible guidance. For starters, there are some neurodivergent people who really get thrown off by interruptions, especially if they are really focused on the task at hand. It is entirely unreasonable for you to expect that your coworkers should be available at your beck and call. And you are totally ignoring the fact the countless studies showing that workplace interruptions cost companies money.

Got to love that productive office work for us swes.

There's always that person. The only solution is renting your own office (not even home office unless one lives alone).

... or you could have communicated your boundaries & expectations first thing and explicitly instead of doing this weird song and dance and complain on hacker news about it afterwards?

> We both learned something about the limits of my patience that day.

Let me guess: you did absolutely nothing?

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> And one of our super old offices has an 80s style wired green/yellow/red light indicator outside of the door, that presumably used to connect to a switch on the desk.

These light trees used to be (and probably still are in some places) used for the purpose of incident management when in operations centers like NOCs or similar. It is tied to internal status and incident management systems.

My old company used these more recently: https://busylight.com/

Man, Plantronics. That brings back some memories!

You have not said what the market is. Recording studios have a solution. And probably don't use pomedero. And the reason for the indicator I assume is to stop people barging in and stop people saying silly stuff thinking their off air so it needs to be inside and outside the room.

So who is this device for again?

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Yes, my experience as well. That's why having an alternate small display (8" or smaller) for your laptop/desktop is better. You can then drag any application on it and use it as a timer or busy sign or whatever. It's way more convenient than an extra device you have to reach and fiddle with.

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This is how Swiss medical appointments are billed. I forget exactly how granular, but it's pretty small - 5-10 minutes. As a result, you tend to be quite efficient when going to the GP, because it’s a few Francs a minute

If I retain a lawyer at $1k an hour, you bet I want 5 minute billing.

> likely to be wildly inaccurate

My gut reaction and prejudiced against all lawyers is it's probably in the law firms interest that these are inaccurate.

If your pay depends on it, you magically become very good at it.

I hate time tracking and time sheets and all of that but at any job I had where I would not get paid without it, it got done.

A big satisfying button to push is welcome.

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Running under capacity is considered a sin for humans. However it is fine for a server (good for burst performance!).

At this point I don’t care if it cures cancer. There’s zero chance I’d ever buy it or even look at that page now. We get it. It exists. Stop spamming it.

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It definitely looks to be made of a metal. To be fair, I'm just basing that off the texture and specular highlights in the photos. It's pretty similar looking to the iMac's case in one of their photos.

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The natural follow up would be: How often do I have to plug it in? If I have to charge it daily it is probably too much of a hassle and I'll have to have it plugged-in all the time.

Standard these days is chargeable, have to imagine that is the case here.

On the image which shows the back screen, you can also see a battery icon in the lower right, so that's a very safe bet.

Interesting. Time to create that Pomodoro app I've always wanted to do.

This is primarily to inform other people in the same building as you.

> techie-flavored consumerism

I didn't dare comment because it would be against the HN guidelines, but I fully agree. Once the novelty wears off it will turn into electronic waste.

> If you can't look at your phone to run a timer without getting distracted, I think there's a different problem to solve.

Say more? What is the different problem?

Feels like a problem in search for a solution to me. Although I haven’t worked in an office for a while now, so it could be that I’m not understanding the importance in such setting (or whatever is this device’s target use environment) that can’t be replaced with a sticky note.

Perfect!

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I recall seeing little USB lights on Amazon that accomplished the same thing for $30. Turn red when your calendar/webcam is active, green when free. Of course, I would be suspicious of the software integration privacy, but different problem.

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If you're frequently on call I guess it's a cool product, but then again nothing a red ON AIR light can't do for a fraction of the price.

Not for $189

You can set your clipart to an end time rather than a count down. "Busy until 16:00"

At this price, you can get a second Monitor facing outward and display how long you’ll be busy on that. In fact, you can get 2 monitors and another computer and have some change left. This is a cool product, especially design-wise, but there are much cheaper solution for this very small problem.

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A few years ago, I built a simpler version of that device myself.

As you said: A 90% solution is easy to hack together. I had mine displaying Skype for Business status so my colleagues would know if I was in a call or just listening to music.

The harder part or much rather the time consuming part is getting a good status message from the installed apps. It looks like there is plenty of software and APIs available.

The Ulanzi TC001 devices are kind of near (without the double screen and all the buttons and stuff) for around $50. IIRC they have an ESP32 and have at least 1 or 2 alternative opensource firmwares.

Can confirm, here’s a small BOM:

8x 8x8 WS2812 Matrix $2 each = $16

ESP32 $3

1x some acrylic to laser-cut a case in a makerspace $5

So $24 total. The screen would be much larger than the Busy Bar version, which could be a pro or a con, depending on what you want.

If you need the smaller back screen (I don’t see the use because I would control it from a computer anyways), that would add another $3 or so. The buttons are basically free but if we assume $3, that’s $30 like you said in total.

or maybe a repurposed eWaste phone/tablet, or at this price probably a new phone.

They do if you insist on molding them, but for small runs 3D printing ought to provide a baseline maximum cost.

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This seems like an item that business would buy in bulk. $180 for single dev version, $90 each in packs of 10. Customized with your company branding maybe.

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The majority of Eurozone countries do put the numbers before the €, but it's not standard across the continent, each country has their own standard and some of them do have the euro sign first.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_and_the_euro#Writte...

(To save a click: Netherlands plus Dutch-speaking half of Belgium, Austria, Cyprus, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, and Turkey are the Eurozone countries which write €1 - which is also the official way to write it in English. Edit: oops, Turkey should be with England in that it's not a Eurozone country, they have their own Turkish lira, but in their language Euro amounts should be written €10, even though lira amounts are written 10TL.)

Although i'm 50/50 on showing the price on the button, i absolutely see your point! I think for devices that are "known" - like, say, a pair of headphones - i suppose i might want to know the price right away...however, for other "unknown" devices, i'd actually like to learn more about the product, its features, maybe use-cases, etc...and as one other person rightly noted even the "Why" i might want/need the product...then again, all of this info could still be shown, and displaying the price shouldn't harm that...so yeah, i gues you're right: they should show the price on the button. :-)

Yeah, that feature callout diagram is really cool!

Its funny you mention the aesthetics, because that's actually what i really liked from the get-go...and then started noticing all this niceties that i listed above (and more i'm sure). Like you, i'm loving the aesthetics!

The downvotes are probably because your comment was unnecessarily abrasive, saying things like "unreadable" and "abhorrent."

The feedback is valuable, but the way it's expressed leaves something to be desired.

the site worked fine on my android phone in vertical mode using Firefox

The functionality is a small screen with a timer and a few API calls to set the timer for you sometimes. $189 for a timer is not a lot of functionality for more than 1% of the annual salary of a minimum wage worker. You can get a full android phone for that much which has 10000x the functionality.

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Fair point given how poorly I worded it. Maybe I could try again.

Yes it's awesome to collaborate with people but if you find a workplace that ignores human factors of knowledge workers, and deters and deep focus, that is a negative signal about that employer. Egs:

    * a noisy, open, "pit" with low/no partitions, where sales guys yell into speakerphones right near people heads down
    * there are no "focus booths" to make private calls or work
    * meeting load is scattered across the day so there's no way to block out working time on calendar
    * adversarial IT dept

They all do too to varying degrees. You can say "X enables cybercrime" and "Y enables more cybercrime than X" and both could be true for any given X and Y.

For instance, someone buying a flipper is far more likely to do something illegal with it than someone buying a soldering iron. Both could be used only for legal purposes too, of course.

For every news story you can find of someone doing a legal thing with a flipper I can find you at least 10 stories of someone doing something illegal with it. Same for metasploit, nmap is borderline, and soldering irons not so much.

Most of the staff looks to be Russian: https://www.linkedin.com/company/flipper-devices/people/

The company makes Flipper Zero as well. When they launched that product, the same topic came up [0]. The strongest argument given seems to hinge on the former nationality/residence of many of the original team. Obviously, different people will weight that above or below the UK address / USA incorporation.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32168388

the original team is Russian, but they downplay that a lot now (until you buy one and the promo stickers are in Russian). yes, they're registered in Delaware, almost every company that operates in the US is, including foreign companies.