I always have trouble remembering what is the Zoom keyboard shortcut to mute or unmute my audio, so I end up grabbing the mouse and clicking the butto

Build a Mute/Unmute Button for your Video Calls with a Raspberry Pi Pico and MicroPython

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2021-05-29 12:30:11

I always have trouble remembering what is the Zoom keyboard shortcut to mute or unmute my audio, so I end up grabbing the mouse and clicking the button instead. While there isn’t really a problem with clicking, it feels inefficient, and that awkward silence while every other call participant is waiting for me to unmute and start speaking appears to last an eternity.

I thought it would be interesting to use my Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller board and MicroPython to design a single-key keyboard with the only function to toggle the audio on my video calls. That way, there is no key combination to remember!

The heart of this device is going to be a Raspberry Pi Pico microntroller. For this project it is recommended that you buy one with headers already soldered, as shown in the picture below.

If you are handy with a soldering iron, you can buy the standard Pico, which comes without header pins, and solder them yourself.