Need a 'sensor' that knows when the microphone on my Mac is on

So I’ve setup audio notifications in my place to let me know when events of interest occur and generally this works fairly well. I’ve also enabled some RGB bulbs to mirror those as well. The problem comes when I don’t want any audible alerts to happen when I’m using my Mac for remote conferencing:

“YOUR MAILBOX IS OPEN!”

Kind of embarrassing so I’d like to have a virtual device running on my Mac that allows me to create gating rules to inhibit audio alerts. Naturally it would need a device handler as well.

Anyone come up with something similar to monitor your PC?

I can’t think of a way to do this with the internal mic on a Mac. That mic is always active… it’s just not being listened to by software until you need it to be. Maybe if you dig around in the various applescript forums, one of those wizards would be able to help you.

I’d probably rig up a big “Mute” momentary button on my desk with a MIMOlite or something. Attach the button to the input side, and use the output side to control a red LED. When the LED is on, my notifications would be muted. Rig up a timer in ST to reset the mute after 1 hour in case you forget to unmute.

Or something like that.

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Great, that’s the kind of direction I was leaning towards, its a verifiable approach. Could also use extra contacts to illuminate an 'ON AIR" sign outside the office door. Thanks!

It could be done with an AppleScript & Webcore – the former being triggered by the turning on of your mic and calling a Webcore endpoint url (which you can design to affect everything within the SmartThings ecosystem). If you install the Echo Speaks SmartApp, you could simply have it mute all of your Echos while the specified micOn parameter is active so that she doesn’t.