Outcome

Intention

Taking David Rose's Ambient Orb as precedent, I learned to work with neopixels to simulate calendar events-controlled ambient lighting.

Process

I made a small light using the 12-pixel ring and some scrap wood, having soldered on wires to the neopixel to ensure strong connections. I then added two small sliding potentiometers to control the lighting's hue and tone. Setting IFTTT logistics aside (though I'd like to revisit this in the future), I then matched various calendar events, namely "meeting," "focus," and "away," to different colors and called them via the Particle cloud console to simulate various events passing by throughout a workday.

Outcome

My final setup includes a simple wiring of a neopixel ring and two potentiometers to the breadboard.

My wireup; the two potentiometers are for color customization should the calendar be open (i.e., no events scheduled).

Cycling through open/available, meeting, focus, away, and then back to open/available; with slight manual tweaks to the color.

Small notch at the bottom in the back to accommodate neopixel wires.

Ambient Blorb in situ.

Reflection

I wish I implemented IFTTT, as this would better simulate "real life" uses of the device. However upon further consideration of the user flow of this at home, I wondered whether there could be a way to selectively turn the light on and off to conserve energy.

Overall this was an enjoyable exercise where I learned a couple soldering best practices.