u/Birn1r

I made another little native app for the BUSY Bar, this time mainly as a fun way to show off different graphics and animations.

It runs completely locally on the device, just like my Meeting Cost app. No browser, API, PC connection or cloud stuff needed once it’s flashed.

The app pulls both animations and still images directly from the BUSY Bar’s existing firmware asset folders, so it can reuse the graphics that are already there instead of duplicating them, and you can choose which ones you want.

You can scroll through the available statuses with the wheel, and the list wraps around continuously, so there’s no real beginning or end. The rear display shows the current status in the middle with inverted colors, along with the surrounding items so you can see what’s coming next and what you just passed.

I also started adding my own custom animations to the same system. So far I’ve made a little Pac-Man animation, which turned out way better than I expected 😄

Mostly just a small show-and-tell project, but I’m having way too much fun turning the BUSY Bar into a tiny animated status machine.

Hi everyone! I made a little native app called Meeting Cost for the BUSY Bar, mainly because I wanted something mildly terrifying to put on the table during meetings.

It’s not using the BUSY API, a browser, or a PC connection. It’s a proper app compiled directly into the BUSY Bar firmware, so once flashed it runs completely standalone on the device.

The app has the same general menu/navigation style as the built-in Clock app:

Start immediately starts a meeting using the saved settings, while Settings lets me configure participant count, meeting duration, hourly cost per person, and how often the displayed cost updates (1/2/5/10 seconds). The settings are stored locally on the device.

During a meeting, the front RGB display shows the running cost together with a progress bar. The bar grows as the meeting progresses and continuously changes colour from green towards red as it approaches 100%. I made it 5 pixels high so it’s actually visible rather than being a sad little single-pixel line.

The rear display shows the remaining meeting time and current cost, while the front effectively shows the meeting progressing. The Start button pauses/resumes the timer, and Back opens an “End meeting?” screen instead of accidentally killing the session.

If the meeting runs past the configured duration, the progress bar stays fully red, the timer goes into overtime, the cost keeps increasing, and the cost text starts gently pulsing between red and almost white as a subtle “this meeting should probably have ended by now” alarm.

I also made custom app icons; a tiny gold coin on the colour display and a matching monochrome coin for the rear.

In the future I'm planning on adding a selector to show/use different currencies.

So basically it turns every meeting into a live financial damage counter. Completely unnecessary. I love it.