“Sorry, my mic was muted…” With the rise of video calls, we’ve all found ourselves rushing to mute or unmute our mics in the midst of a call. This open-source Mute Button, sent in by [blackdevice], aims to take out the uncertainty and make toggling your mic easy.
It’s centered around a small PIC32MM microcontroller that handles the USB communications, controls the three built-in RGB LEDs, and reads the inputs from the encoder mounted to the center of this small device. The button knob combo is small enough to easily move around your desk, yet large enough to toggle without fuss when it’s your turn to talk.
To utilize all the functions of the button, you’ll need to install the Python-based driver on your machine. Doing so will let you not only toggle your microphone and volume, but it will also allow the button to light up to get your attention should you be trying to talk with the mic muted.
Although small, it’s also quite rugged, knowing it will spend its life being treated much like a game of Whac-A-Mole—slapped whenever needed. The case is designed to be 3D printed by any FDM printer, with the top knob section printed in translucent material to make the notification light clearly visible.
All of the design files, firmware, and parts list are available over on [blackdevices]’s GitHub page, and they are open-source, allowing you to tweak the design to fit your unique needs. Thank you for sending in this well-documented project, [blackdevices]; we look forward to seeing future work. If you like this type of thing, be sure to check out some of our other cool featured desk gadgets.
Kinda over engineered but still cool
Totally mind-blowing. Genius. I am glad I lived so long to see it happen.
You could, just, I don’t know, pay attention? Learn how the software works? Remember which button to press, and how to see the current state?
I’m a big fan of having a physical switch inline with the microphone.
I also like the little plastic clip that slides over the camera in my laptop.
Simple, and can’t be hacked.
You could do those things.
You could also ride a bike instead of using a car.
You could also walk instead of riding a bike.
You could also stay home instead of going out.
Should we infinitely recurse back to hunting and gathering? What technology is ‘good enough’?
I think most people get tripped up on having a mute button in the video call and another one on their headset. sometimes pressing one will toggle both and sometimes they can be individually toggled and you can be double muted.
I use a Jabra 65 headset and use the mic arm to un/mute. Arm up: muted. Got used to it so qucikly I don’t need any gadgets.
Anyway, especially MS teams quickly reminds you to unmute when talking and muted, so….
I will never understand the mindset of the contrarian. Like, they seem to not realize that they come off as if they’re projecting an insecurity when they try to contradict something that holds absolutely no negative bearing on their life. It makes them sound like a miserable ass whose just trying to make others just as miserable. Not saying that’s you, but food for thought. :)
would be cooler if the mic was actually in this thing
I don’t like the virtual serial port. It shouldn’t be hard to create a USB HID device that can register as a volume knob and a mute button. That way there’s no specialty software that has to run on the computer side.
It’s odd that it does not prove how it works.
As it is not the first encoder of this type, it could be used for other “gestures” like scrolling, zooming, etc.
That’s very cool. I prefer an analog method when it comes to privacy though. I prefer an analog mic connected to a USB mic-in adapter with a mute switch on the analog side.
That way there is no software bug or hack possible that could un-mute me against my will.
I’ll take a flip down physical cover over the camera too for the same reason.
I loved working at home during Covid. If I ever get the opportunity to do that again I think I will probably have to assemble one of those pi-zero based open source webcams just because no-one sells a USB camera without a mic in it anymore and I insist on my hardware mute.