The Idea

I want a light that turns on when my webcam turns on. I want the light to turn off when my camera turns off. The idea is that my camera is on when I am in an online meeting. The light is a good indicator to everyone, including myself, that I am in a meeting.

The System

In order to turn a light on and off, I need a script that monitors my webcam for activity. This script will then send the status of my webcam to ThingSpeak, a cloud IoT platform that allows you to save and retrieve sensor data. Then, the on-air light controller will read the data from ThingSpeak and turn the light on if my camera is on.

The Parts

I was able to find everything you need on Amazon to build this project.

• On Air sign
• ESP32 board
• ESP32 screw terminal board
• LED light strip

Here are some notes about these parts.

• You can use any sign that you want to light up. I chose this one since it was $15 US and looks great. It also includes a Micro USB cable that you can use for the ESP32 device.
• Screw terminals make this project a solder-free project. Some people who wrote me said that soldering was a barrier to getting started. I want this to be accessible to as many makers as possible. Screw terminals offer a quick way to break out the pins of the ESP32 board and easily connect wires.
• Only certain styles of the ESP32 board work with the screw terminals. The terminals are for the 38-pin version of the HiLetgo ESP-WROOM-32 ESP32 dev board. The two parts that I linked to on Amazon will fit together perfectly. Other ESP32 boards might not work with the screw terminal expansion board.

ThingSpeak Setup

ThingSpeak is an IoT service hosted by MathWorks. It is focused on being easy to collect data and then retrieve that data. We are going to leverage that core functionality for this project. ThingSpeak stores data in a channel and each channel has eight fields.

Visit ThingSpeak.com and Sign Up for an account. This will just take a minute and user accounts are free. Once you have a user account, you need to create a channel. ThingSpeak channels are where data gets stored. Create a new channel by selecting Channels, My Channels, and then New Channel. Name the channel, “On Air Light” and name Field 1, “Webcam State”. Click “Save Channel” at the bottom to finish the process.

Click API Keys and note your write API key and read API key. The write API key will be used by the code to track your webcam state. The read API key will be used to turn on or off the light based on the webcam state.

Track Webcam State

I wrote a Python script that uses OpenCV to detect if the camera is in use or not. It sends a “1” to field1 of the ThingSpeak Channel if the camera is in use. It sends a 0 if the camera is not in use. Just run this code on a periodic basis to track the state of your webcam.

The code to track my webcam state and upload the state to ThingSpeak is available on GitHub. Update the code with your ThingSpeak Channel’s write API key.

Most of the magic is here:

def returnWebcamStatus(webcamIndex):

    webcam = cv2.VideoCapture(webcamIndex, cv2.CAP_DSHOW)

    if webcam.isOpened():
        webcam.release()
        return True #Webcam not in use
    else:
        return False #Webcam in use

Assembly

Get your parts together and get ready to put everything together. Take your time and step through. There is no soldering, just some connections to be made on a set of screw terminals. You will need cutters, a small screwdriver, and some tape to complete the assembly.

Connect the ESP32 board to the SCrew Terminal Board

Make sure to get the right orientation of the boards together. The 5V pins should line up and the USB part should be pointing down.

Cut Off the Out Connector from the LED Strip

We can use the connector on the out side of the LED strip. Cut this off and strip back some of the insulation. We will use this connector for the screw terminals.

Connect the Connector to the Screw Terminal Board

Connect the red wire to the 5v terminal. Connect the green wire to P13. Connect the white wire to GND.

Connect the LED Strip to the Connector

Program the ESP32

Using the Micro USB cable that comes with the On Air Light, connect the ESP32 to your computer.

The code that the Arduino IDE uses is called a “sketch” – this is just a short program that the device runs over and over. In this project, we are going to have the code that checks the ThingSpeak channel for the webcam status and sets the LED strip to either on or off. Copy the example code to your Arduino IDE and change some of the defaults to match your Wi-Fi network and ThingSpeak settings.

Once everything is set, click Sketch and then Upload. This will take the code and program the ESP32 with it. It takes a minute, so be patient. If anything goes wrong, make sure that you have the right board settings and that your “Port” matches what your laptop thinks the port is.

Open the On Air Light

The housing of the On Air light is held together by several tabs. Take your screwdriver and gently twist in each opening. It will come apart without damage. Just take your time and open each tab.

Remove the Existing LED Board

Remove the existing board on the inside of the light. Trim the wires off close to the circuit board so you have some length to work with.

Connect the USB Wires to the Board

Connect the red wire to the 5v screw terminal. Connect the black wire to the GND screw terminal. You will have two wires in each. I used some tape to make sure that the screw terminal board doesn’t move around.

Snap It All Back Together

Carefully snap the two halves back together.

Profit.

Enjoy your On Air light. Maybe this will remind you or someone in your family that you actually work when you are home.

My goal was to show you the steps as clearly as possible and share the code. I hope that you can reproduce this as easily as possible. If you need help leave a comment or join me on my new Discord server.

Parts

• Wi-Fi LED Strip
• Stream Deck – Any size

Concept

Here’s the idea. We are going to illuminate a box using a Wi-Fi controlled LED Strip. The LED strip that we are selecting uses Wi-Fi to connect to your home router and this allows you to control the LED strip (colors and state) using an IoT home automation site called Tuya Smart Life. In order to control the lights, you can either use your smartphone or buy a Stream Deck. The Stream Deck gives you push-button control of the light. So, when you start up your meeting or online meetings, you just touch a button on the Stream Deck and your live streaming lights turn on, including your new on-air light.

Configure Wi-Fi LED Strip

The first major hurdle is getting your new Wi-Fi LED Strip connected to your Wi-Fi network at your house. You need to know the network name and password. To configure the LED lights, you have to start with the Tuya Smart Life mobile app on your phone. Download the appropriate app for Android or Apple. A side bonus is that the Tuya Smart Life app supports lots of home automation things you might have around the house. When you are searching around Amazon, make sure in the Q&A or the reviews area to see if the product supports Tuya. If so, you can have everything controlled by one app. Sign up for a new account and then add your LED Strip to your account. Give the LED strip an easy-to-remember name. Admittedly, this might now go very smoothly. I have found that I need to try the process a few times to get the app to detect my lights. If you run into any trouble, make sure that your lights are in pairing mode and that your Wi-Fi access point supports 2.4GHz.

Configure IFTTT

Visit IFTTT.com and sign up for a free account. With a free account, you can create three applets. IFTTT allows you to connect things to other things. In our case, we are eventually going to connect a Stream Deck to the LED strip. A Stream Deck doesn’t normally connect to the LED strip, so we are going to use IFTTT to bridge this gap. Create a new Applet. Under This, add a webhook. Under That, connect the Smart Life service. A webhook is a trigger that the Stream Deck will use to cause a command on the Smart Life platform. In our case, we are going to toggle the state of the LED strip (turn it on if it was off or turn it off if it was on). Note the key and name of the webhook when you create it at IFTTT. You will use this info for your Stream Deck.

Configure Stream Deck

The Stream Deck has a bunch of buttons that you can press to automate your live stream studio, control things while you are streaming, or quickly open apps at a touch. I use my Stream Deck to control PowerPoint while I give presentations and webinars.

Within the Stream Deck software, open Store. This will list all of the integrations that are possible. Search for IFTTT. Install the plugin. Drag the custom button to a new button your Stream Deck and configure it with the name of the applet and key from the IFTTT website. I grabbed an image of an On Air light from Google Images and added it as a custom icon.

Experience

I have been using this configuration for about a year and it has worked every time. Right before, I start a live stream event, I tough the Stream Deck and my On Air light comes on a few seconds later. Stream Deck also supports events that cause many things to happen with one button press. You could add this IFTTT event to a list of other events that happen all at once. We didn’t have to code anything to make this LED controller but it is a little complicated to configure. And, every part of the system is not well documented out there. This is truly for the maker, but you can get it going if you persist. Now that you know about this general workflow, you can control anything during your live streams. Maybe, you have a light turn on in the background when you get a new sub. Let me know what you build with this!

Along with the rest of the world, I have been working at home for the past couple of weeks. All of my meetings are now online/virtual ones and we use Microsoft Teams and Zoom. We also use video to better facilitate a connection and help us focus on the meeting. The camera that I have doesn’t have a light indicator showing whether it is in use. So, I put two and two together and come up with a remote controllable ‘On Air’ light for online meetings. It was the perfect project to entertain my three-year-old for a few hours. He was delighted every time the light turned on.

George and I ripped apart a Sunbeam Touch Light that I got for $1 in a surplus sale (you can use a Wi-Fi LED Strip). This light had a strip of LEDs, a controller, and a power supply. I just added an ESP8266 module and connected it to ThingSpeak using my tutorial that I published a few years ago. I wrote a little Visual Basic.NET script based on a project that I found on CodeGuru to detect whether or not the webcam was in use or not. If it’s in use, the script sends a signal to ThingSpeak to turn on the light.

Update – February 2021 – Python Script for Webcam State Detection

I have been getting requests for the code to detect my webcam usage. I did have a cobbled-together Visual Basic script that detected if my camera is in use or not and set the state of my On Air light accordingly. This approach was not very accessible, so I rewrote this in Python using OpenCV. Just run this code on a periodic basis to track the state of your webcam.

The code to track my webcam state and upload the state to ThingSpeak is now available on GitHub.

Most of the magic is here:

def returnWebcamStatus(webcamIndex):

    webcam = cv2.VideoCapture(webcamIndex, cv2.CAP_DSHOW)

    if webcam.isOpened():
        webcam.release()
        return True #Webcam not in use
    else:
        return False #Webcam in use

Update – August 2021 – No Code On-Air Light

I have been getting requests for a no-code version of my On Air light. Well, I have created a new tutorial that only requires some configuration instead of programming. This option uses a Wi-Fi LED Strip and a Stream Deck controller.

Check out the tutorial: No Code: On Air Light Controller For Live Streaming and Online Meetings.

Update – January 2023 – Easier DIY On Air Light

I got lots of comments on questions about my On Air light project. I realize that it was a little too DIY. I used parts that I had and it was not easy for others to reproduce. I just updated the project to be based on parts that you can get from Amazon or somewhere else pretty easily. I also took away the need for soldering by using a screw terminal board. I think more people will be able to build their own On Air Status Light for Teams or Zoom.