I wanted a simple visual indicator for my office desk that would tell me the traffic conditions for my afternoon commute. Sometimes I forget to check Google Maps and am often burned by bad traffic from an accident or construction.
I put together a python script that sits on my personal server and uses the Google Maps API to "broadcast" the traffic to an MQTT broker.
The cube has an ESP8266 and some addressable LED's (WS2812B) that listen to the broker for a message. Based on the message it will change to green, amber, or red.
One nice thing about this solution is it can be repurposed on the server side and nothing needs to change on the embedded microcontroller.
Details
To do:
Create new case that can accept 4 pieces of acrylic. Top, front, left and right.