Like many folks post-2020, I’ve been working from home a lot more, and with that came a new set of challenges — one of them being how to let my family know when I’m in a meeting without yelling across the house or hanging a note on the door. I decided to solve that problem the way any tech nerd would — with a bit of home automation magic.
Previously, I made a YouTube video demonstrating how to automate the detection of whether a meeting is happening using Home Assistant and a light. In that video, I used an ESP32 board and LED light strips controlled by WLED, integrated with Home Assistant for the automation. Since then, I’ve discovered the ESP32-S3 Matrix a compact and versatile development board featuring an ESP32-S3 processor and an 8x8 RGB LED matrix with 64 integrated LEDs. This board is perfect for creating interactive lighting projects, digital art, and real-time visual displays. Its compact design makes it ideal for my setup: a small device placed inside a wine press located outside my office to signal my current meeting status with lights.
