There was a cool device I saw once, used for timing your work. You'd program the faces for different tasks (bug fixes, new features, etc.) and whatever you worked on, you'd have that face up, and when you changed tasks, you'd turn it to something else, and it would track how you spent your time.

You’re probably thinking about Timeular? A neat device but like the 8Sleep also tied to a monthly subscription which is why I stopped using it :’)

No, it was dodecahedral or octahedral, I can't remember. I just vaguely recall it looked like a Platonic solid. I don't remember it having a subscription. I think it just communicated with BT to your laptop or something? Might've just been a kickstarter that didn't get funding.

Sounds good until you come home to a house flashing like a Christmas tree because your kid needed another D12 for their table-top role-playing game.

You see a bug, I see a feature

I've got a cube that's hooked into my Home Assistant setup that works similarly. Flipping the cube upside down turns my bedside light on or off, rotating it clockwise increases the brightness, and counterclockwise decreases it.

How exactly does it communicate these changes, if I might ask?

I did something similar using these: https://eu.aqara.com/products/aqara-cube-t1-pro (or rather, an earlier iteration). Just Zigbee, nothing too complex, and then you hook it into something which knows how to interpret the events it sends (or events + current state if you want it to be a little more contextually smart). I generally tried to centralise the smarts, dumb devices and a smart interpreter always worked out more robust than clever devices. It's amazing how many combinations of actions you can indicate just by shaking/tapping/turning/flipping - more than enough to do the things you commonly do with one actuator (a light or set of lights for example).

One that comes to mind is: flip over to turn on/off, flip over and back again to randomize (like a snow globe).

Check out the zigbee2mqtt page for the cube

https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/devices/MFKZQ01LM.html

kolektiv's parallel comment explains it perfectly.

And if a guest comes round and messes it, the lights dim, blood runs down the walls, nails come out of your head, and the furniture starts moving.

NO NO NO NO NO! Not the wed wun. Don't EVER push the wed wun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_IE_0-Xlis

There are a bunch of Zigbee switches, rockers, etc (including the Aqara cube people mentioned) that you can use as rich controls.

Wow. I love that UI concept!

I like this idea, now I want to make one of those. Even a two- or six-sided one would be useful, and I can print different enclosures and reprogram the feather or ESP if I want to add sides.

I don’t think they sell it anymore, but I forgot it’s actually a HomeKit controller, so you could (try) to use it to control several devices at once. Since only one face is up at a time you would have to gang the behaviors, such as turning off several lights or turning them on.

Old CNet article: https://www.cnet.com/reviews/nanoleaf-remote-review/

See my comment to a sibling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43132279 - there's a few simple little functional objects out there which make this kind of process quite easy.

That sounds cool, but I'm a little resistant to being asked to remember to charge my lightswitch.

That's unfortunately a big part of why mine is dead. The batteries are hard to get to. Also their iOS app is frustrating to use.

Could maybe be made low enough power that it can power itself via ambient light (like an old school calculator) or radio waves.

That would be cool, but I haven't actually seen it in anything other than an old school calculator so I assume the limitations are pretty significant.

I've seen energy-harvesting remote light switches for sale — they supposedly get enough energy from the physical act of flipping the toggle to send a few radio packets. I haven't used one in the real world though.

Some of the ones at my company require you to stab them with your fingers for 15 seconds like a maniac before they turn the light on.