Master Video Call Control Panel is Made of PCBs

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[memestra] is a teacher whose life has become a series of videoconferences over the last year or so. With all the classes and meetings, they spend the whole day switching between either Zoom, Teams, or Meet. If anyone needs a single piece of hardware to control them all, itā€™s [memestra]. Well, and every other teacher out there.

The hardware ā€” an Arduino Pro Micro and some buttons ā€” should come as no surprise, except for maybe [memstra]ā€™s use of a resistor network for the LEDs. Still, thereā€™s a lot to like about this little box, starting with the enclosure. Thatā€™s not milled or laser-cut metal ā€” each side is a PCB, and theyā€™re all soldered together into a box.

We especially like the top panel, which fits down over the PCB that all the components are soldered to. Each of the non-volume buttons has multiple functions that are accessed by pressing, long pressing, or double pressing. But even the volume buttons do double duty: press them together to mute and un-mute. If [memestra] ever forgets which button does what and how, thereā€™s a handy reference table silkscreened on the bottom panel.

In true teacher fashion, [memestra] has written comprehensive instructions for anyone looking to build a similar device. The heavily-commented code should make it a cinch to drop in keyboard shortcuts for Discord or anything else you might be using, though itā€™s worth noting that this box is optimized for the desktop apps and not the browser-based versions.

Just looking for a fun way to end video calls? Pull chains are pretty fun.



from Blog ā€“ Hackaday https://ift.tt/2MHZecR

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