That's pretty neat, although $250 feels like a lot for that at first glance. I get it has a lot of features but it's hard to get past the "it's a $250 busy indicator".
Not that I'd spend $250, but even something like that sold more as an open device to be used for a lot of different things changes (for the better) the value proposition in my mind a little than just sold as a busy sign with lots of integrations. Granted ... this appears to be that too. That's more a of a commentary on perception.
As the page points out (top-right corner), this thing is the physical accessory to an existing phone app: https://busy.app/
Though, mind you, said app doesn't perform exactly the same function as the bar itself; "Busy App" seems to be more of a distraction-blocking pomodoro timer for your own phone, rather than a digital "busy sign" for you to point at the rest of the room.
IMHO, presuming a desk implies a PC (or laptop dock) with at least one spare USB port — the simplest thing here wouldn't even be an old phone; it'd just be a red USB light (think a red siren, but without the moving/flashing) that you could set on top of your desk/monitor/cubicle wall, and control with a little menu bar widget (perhaps automatically, by heuristic.)
I wouldn't buy this because of the price tag but I love the industrial design of this thing! I wish there were more things like this (albeit more practical) that I would like to upgrade my desk with.
If there was a product that let me convey "Come back later" to a barging inquirer with a sharp and uncanny hand motion, I might consider paying $249 for it:
The cinematics in Descent 3 (1999) had some very similar motion issues, enough so that I remember them today. It comes from incorrect smoothing in the IK animation, doesn't have to be AI generated.
I dunno, I found those cinematics to be pretty endearing. Sure, they've aged like mud, but I enjoyed the back in the early 2000's :) They stayed well clear of the uncanny valley.
Right about here[1] the hand motions of both characters have the same misapplied smoothing. Ignore the clipping through the table, watch the character tap the side of his head, it's got the same weird slow-down before touching the temple. Same for most of the other motions, they don't accelerate correctly.
I went so far as to put a post-it note saying "I'M BUSY" on my headphones. The usual suspect came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder until I reacted, all so he could tell me, "hah, someone put a post-it note on your headphones!"
If I didn't kill someone that day, it's unlikely that I ever would.
I work from home and this would be cool to communicate with my kids when I'm on a call before they barge in asking questions. HOWEVER, the price is WAY too high. This is at most a $50 dollar thing.
Don't you already have a door? With a lock? A mute button? OK, maybe those aren't cool, but don't you have a piece of paper, pens, markers and some time to design your own DND signs with your kids? $50 still seems like a lot. We don't have to buy something to deal with every little inconvenience in our lives when what we have on hand + maybe a tiny bit of creativity can probably suffice.
This is the boutique designed not-in-china version. If it proves successful, a $50 Chinese knockoff will be along soon enough. You can vote with your wallet and say fuck these guys for having a good idea and working on it and buy the cheap Chinese crap version when it's available if you'd rather.
I recently set up a "busy" indicator using Home Assistant (HA) and the Home Assistant Companion app for macOS. The desktop app exposes various MacBook sensors to HA, which can then trigger automations.
When my microphone activates, it triggers an automation that powers a socket. A red LED lamp lights up, signaling to everyone that I’m on a call or recording a video.
you dont need all of that to improve focus. start with 30 seconds, clear your mind, set a timer for 30 seconds, sit in a corner and start meditating. the challenge is that as soon as you think of something inside your mind, stop the timer. do this daily and your meditation times will slowly improve and your focus will come back
i have a morning routine and the first thing i do is to set a timer to meditate for 5 minutes. i rarely make it to 5 minutes before the thoughts flood in and i decide to go ahead and dive into the work. hadn't thought about making it a counting-up timer instead to track the improvement but i'll be trying that from now on
the way you are actually supposed to meditate is to keep your mind completely clear. I have been testing this for almost a year now and even I cannot manage more than 5 mins of it but the idea is that as soon as you get a thought inside your head, open your eyes and stop the timer. It doesnt matter if it was 5 seconds or 2 mins but slowly and steadily your times will increase and so will your focus
i would chant "Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" while meditating because that is one way to force your mind to keep it from having thoughts but then maybe it is just me
I don't know why but that video on the homepage (third media item from top) split me up for how rude/brash it came across.
The mans thrusting his palm out in front of the colleague, slapping the top of his alarm clock, the woman's exaggerated third person glance and swift exit.
I can only imagine it's followed by a complaint to HR or gossip, with the man on the laptop quickly becoming a hate-figure in the office.
This should be a $4.99 app on a smartphone and/or desktop and doesn't take up any space.
Related but different better time/social management physical device for cube land would be an Arduino, a button, and an 4-7 color andon tower representing states such as:
- Working
- Lunch or errand (will return)
- Out-of-office (not returning for the day)
- Working remotely
- DND
- Open to socializing
- On vacation
And then a glossary for definitions posted prominently on the cube/office and on the intranet portal personal page. No app, no internet connectivity, no security vulnerabilities, no complexity, and <$20.
What about instead an unobtrusive software-based timer on your computer?
And the notification to coworkers not to interrupt you being a low-tech "BUSY" Post-It on the back of your laptop. Or your headphones on?
Though their advertising does have some interesting features and use cases. For example, you'd need to figure out a convention equivalent to smacking the Busy Bar button, to make your colleagues slink away.
Neat. I have something I use that was $25 on Amazon. It's not as fancy and has a crappy app, but it works for what I want with displaying something to others while I stay focused.
The other features are interesting, but software features that may not warrant a hardware.
This also doesn't seem bigger than a phone and makes me wonder why not use a phone mount.
I'm going to guess it was something along the lines of this [0]... wow now I kind of want to buy one of their larger versions for the back of my car to remind tailgaters "Yes I CAN go even slower" when I'm already going 5-10mph over the speed limit
I personally was intrigued by this by the first HN post months ago. Then I showed my wife the website, to which she said, "This looks like a parody product." If only it's more affordable.
I was thinking of doing a kickstarter a while back for something similar. One surprising thing that kept me from proceeding (or at least, a thing I used as an excuse to not do the project) was that the guy who "owns" the pomodoro timer trademark is a total jerk about it.
I have a home office and sometimes my wife will come busting in with the kids being silly. It's not a big deal but I would like some sort of indication for outside the room for when I am in a meeting.
This seems more designed for shared working spaces which seem limited these days
It's wild to me that this product went from 0 to where it's at, and no one stopped it along the way. This is going to hit like a handful of nerd enthusiasts, and that's it.
I used something simpler for 20€ for a while to indicate my busy status:
https://www.getdigital.de/pages/offlineprodukt/usb-mail-meld...
I guess it‘s no longer for sale. It even worked with Linux. I wrote some shell scripts back then to indicate my busy status from my jabber account using this gadget.
It feels as if the text on top of the device is upside down.. Should be directed at the user of the device, who sits behind the device (on the side of the small screen)
I bought a six-pack of sand timers. They are silent, require no apps, have no screens, and are beautiful. They will probably outlive solutions such as these.
If anyone is looking for something similar, but better priced, the Ulanzi TC001[1] with a custom firmware[2] is pretty nice. With the custom firmware, you can integrate it with Home Assistant and do all sorts of things with it.
For example, one idea my wife had was to have one on top of the washing machine displaying the last cycle of the machine based on the energy readings from a Zigbee smart socket, so we don't have to ask each other if the last cycle was a wash or drying cycle.
Will it change your life? No. But for $59 buckets it may add convenience here or there ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s nice that the phone app is free and works without the device. I’m curious about how “Hardcore Mode (optional)” could work, which the page describes as “Locks apps for the entire focus session with no way to bypass it. The only way to unlock them is a full phone reset.”
I could not find this in the app, maybe it’s Android only, an upcoming feature, or requires the Busy Bar hardware device.
I'm amazed that nobody is pointing out that the entire thing doesn't look "designed" it looks AI generated.
Give me a clock timer that has these features....
Make me a website to sell this fake timer...
Particularly the instructive text on the back. A real designer would never have all that descriptive text always visible for things you'll only use once.
Yes, the "USB-C port at the bottom ---->" and huge QR code really got me going. I have to hope that's all on a sticker that's meant to be torn off after you take it out of the package.
I've been in a place where making that say "busy" when Visual Studio had the focus would be really useful... Except (cough) certain people in the culture would find it insulting.
It makes me wonder... How do you push on the "I can interrupt anyone at any time for any reason" attitude? I had a lot of trouble pushing on it in a previous workplace.
You be direct. When people come to you and interpret you, say “I am currently working on something else, but I will come find you when I’m free”. Most people eventually pick up that IM’ing first wastes less of their time.
If you constantly give them your attention immediately, you are telling them that’s how it should work.
then come the hour long "it's easier if we just hop on a meeting" invites or dreaded "hi" messages because many of the same people who aren't considerate about interruptions are allergic to async communication
I saw this on twitter a few hours ago on my phone, and misread the price as $25, so I was considering maybe putting in an order or even two, but when I revisited the site on my laptop and discovered it was $250, my curiosity hit a wall. Looks like a super neat product but unfortunately a bit overpriced for a gimmick.
Is it me or is the top interface oriented the wrong way? You want to have the big screen pointed away from the user and all of the top controls are facing/written to the audience.
Aren't all the labels on the buttons facing the wrong way? They're facing outwards in the direction of the screen viewer, rather than inwards towards the person operating the thing.
It was recently trending on X so I've asked ChatGPT to make few designs for things like portable power station and EV charger and it worked pretty well.
Edit: In many other threads on HN, people lament and protest the difficulty of getting paid well as a freelancer or small business in the technology industry. Let’s not trash someone for charging a handsome price for a product that’s had a lot of time, thought and design talent invested into it. Everybody knows that other clocks ant timers exist. Nobody is forced to buy this one. But we can still appreciate the effort and talent that someone has put into trying to create something beautiful, and respect them for charging a premium for it. And let’s keep Hacker News from being a place for grumpiness, especially about people trying to make nice new things.
But it's much more than just a digital clock. It's a very bright LED remote display. It's easily programmable. Also, take note of both the desktop and the mobile apps, plus both Mater and Home Assistan integrations.
Of course a device like this can be built for 10% of the price tag, or maybe for $0 if you already have the spare parts lying around, and just enjoy writing Arduino firmware sometimes. But for a less techy customer this thing makes total sense, and for a corporate customer it seems to have the full package for a hassle-free deployment somewhere in a sales department.
BOM is always a very minor part of such projects, say, 5%; the major cost is electronic / mechanical / software engineering, then marketing (including the very good web site) and sales, production and shipping, etc.
Nothing wrong with that. It's okay to indulge the things that tickle your fancy now and then, even if you're a super serious adult who's vibe coding the next OpenAI 36 hours per day, 15 days per week.
I don’t think the timer and status is for you, so much as for other people in your physical world. Examples would be someone who works at home who needs a way to signal to spouse/kids that they are busy and when they will be free, or an office worker who gets frequent walk up interruptions.
While there are certainly much cheaper ways to solve this problem, I think there is a market. Specifically podcasters and YouTubers who film at home, love gadgets that will look good in the background of a video, and love gear more than the work itself.
When I was in the office I solved this with a hoodie. If the hood was up, I was focusing and people generally didn’t bother me. I never even said anything or realized I was doing it, people just got it.
I bet the core audience is not software engineers, but sales, higher-level customer support, and other professionals with relatively expensive time who also need to work with people around.
But I think the makers hope to have some extra sales from the people buying it as a toy, too.
It's not about the functionality though. And of course it's not, because like you say, it could be an app if it were.
It's about the interface. And of course it is, because look how gorgeous yet minimal it is.
I guarantee most tasks can be accomplished with this in less steps and less time than if you had to pull out your phone, open an app, and do it. Remember, this is sitting on your desk at arms length at any time you need to use it, and always in your face with information at a glance.
No wireless, less space than nomad, you can replicate this in a few hours with FTP, curlftpfs, and SVN, etc.
Assuming the device is as polished as its slick marketing page, I'm a little skeptical it could be replicated in a week. That said, if you disagree this is a great opportunity to undercut the competition!
With ai its even faster tbh last i made my own led driver i didnt even have proper documentation. Also waste of money, its not the only thing i will be buying will i?
I had a scrap industrial stack light set up in my office to indicate my busy/not-busy state. I never clicked it to red when someone was approaching, but in hindsight, it was still a bit obnoxious tbh.
Feel extremely passive aggressive. Or just plain aggressive. Especially the one of the woman coming over and the guy hitting the busy button. If someone did that to me that’d be the last time.
Yeah it’s like a hardcore group of enthusiasts have zero awareness of how rude that actually is and have pushed on with their dream project regardless. They will be so crushed when their workplace bans their new $250 toy within days instead of hauling them as heroes which is what happens in the alternate timeline in their heads..
If you can afford a $250 light up piece of plastic nonsense to taunt and gatekeep your coworkers with, chances are you can probably spend $20 on a time management book.
this seems like an actively hostile narcissistic addition to a collaborative workplace that would get you fired in a week.
I've seen these kinds of things more for children/family in work-from-home than coworkers. My mom used to do it primarily with door status (is the door open or shut), but I've seen families where something brighter and more obvious is helpful.
Yeah, it didn't suprise me that the only woman in all the demos was coming to interupt the BUSY dev and his Important Work. I was surprised that this is made by Flipper, though!
For those who work from home, we have made it possible to hang the device on the door so that no one knocks on your door when you are on call. Also, by integration with the BUSY App it can automatically block notifications on phone and desktop when you are in focus mode.
Not that I'd spend $250, but even something like that sold more as an open device to be used for a lot of different things changes (for the better) the value proposition in my mind a little than just sold as a busy sign with lots of integrations. Granted ... this appears to be that too. That's more a of a commentary on perception.
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