There have been various “hobbyist” electronics projects to do interesting things with presence lights and Microsoft Lync including:
- Tommy Clarke’s Lync Buddy: Click Here for Video
- Tom Kisners’ FEZ Panda Indicator: http://www.youtube.com/v/Q14wNlRHTAk?autoplay=1
- Tom’s project with another feature: Click here
- Lync Christmas Lights: Video Click Here
- Presence Status Indication System on Codplex: Writeup and Code click here
But I believe the BusyLight is the first commercially packaged product to provide physical presence light and ringer. Below is my video review of the device:
What are the Features of the BusyLight?
- Shows your Lync presence status by a color coded LED on top of a 4” tall wand
- Green, Red, Orange and Yellow presence states.
- (Ironic NOTE: Even the Lync Optimized phones only 3 colors! Green, Red, Yellow!)
- The unit has a built in ringer speaker
- if you have a headset laying on desk, there is still a ring you can hear
- or with a device with no speakers you still have a ringer
- Lighted Ringer (Blinks blue for ring)
What is in the box?
- The USB BusyLight
- Adhesive pad to stick the BusyLight to your laptop or monitor
- How to Install sheet
Some Pictures
The HP 4120 gives a little size comparison in the background.
The 2 small slots are for the ringer.
Mount can be angled to easily attach where you want.
ringer blue light (below)
How to Setup
- Plug the BusyLight into USB on your PC and the BLL driver should automatically load.
- Now you need to install and run the Windows tray app. Download it here: www.busylight.com/support/lync.
The tray app
Notes:
- The device is not a USB speaker device as I expected. (you do not configure this in Lync)
- The ring tones do not appear to be modifiable by user
- The tray app MUST be running for the BusyLight to work.
- the LED is nice and bright (the photos seem to appear more washed out than the actual LED)
You can buy the device:
http://www.busylight.com/index.php
Note: How is the Jabra busylight related to the Kuando BusyLight? (some striking similarities!)
http://scavali.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/jabra-brings-it-for-teleworkers-the-9450-with-busylight/
Thanks for the mention Matt, and for posting this review and video. It looks like a pretty neat device. And hey don't forget about Tommy's Lync Buddy :) www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8WHl5OnI7k
ReplyDeletethanks Tom! i knew there were more but i couldn't remember all of them! ;-)
ReplyDeleteHi Matt. Thanks for a great review of our Busylight for Lync. You ask about the Jabra Busylight. It's similar because we produce it for Jabra under OEM. Thanks again. Morten, Plenom a/s
ReplyDelete@Morten: Thanks for that update Morten! wish you and Busylight the best.
ReplyDeleteAny idea what happened to this company? I haven't been able to get their website to come up for weeks. I need the drivers for this.
ReplyDeleteThanks
http://www.busylight.com/ works fine here.
DeleteA cheaper option: http://www.blynclight.com/products/blync-light
ReplyDelete