How To: This DIY Xbox LIVE Traffic Light Tells You When Your Friends Are Gaming

This DIY Xbox LIVE Traffic Light Tells You When Your Friends Are Gaming

Games are always more fun when you have someone to play them with, but if you're not always logged in to your Xbox LIVE account, how do you know when your friends are online? You can always log in and check, but where's the fun in that when you can hack together a traffic light to do it for you?

Image via dropbox.com

Andrew F hooked up an Arduino with an Ethernet shield to check every five minutes to see how many of his Xbox LIVE friends are online. For each friend, it records either a zero or a one, depending on their status.

He used this API from xboxleaders.com and Arduino's text finder library to find the online status, and you can probably guess what the colors mean. Andrew has his set up so that it lights up yellow for one friend and green for any number more than one, but you could easily change these.

Image via dropbox.com

You can find the code on Github and more details on the setup at Andrew's blog.

Just updated your iPhone to iOS 18? You'll find a ton of hot new features for some of your most-used Apple apps. Dive in and see for yourself:

Cover photo by xavi talleda

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