This project is still underway, mostly because I have not had time to devote to it.
I kicked off this project because I was irritated by people coming to my desk and bothering me, even though I was on a phone call. The Jabre headphones have built-in red LEDs to indicate that I am on a call, yet people still bother me.
So I figured I needed a distinct status light.
In my research, I found that the best approach is to connect to the Microsoft API; however, even at the division IT level, this would raise several flags. Not to say at a corporate level. As an alternative, I found that using Python, I could determine whether the microphone was in use or the computer had been idle for a predetermined period. I made a Python program that identifies if you are on a call, away from your computer (via activity), or can be manually set to a colour. This program runs as a background task in an .exe file and communicates via USB with a microcontroller that controls the colour of an LED board.
Although the project is nearly finished from the Python side, I still need to refine the microcontroller and the circuit board it operates on.