Headphone Stand With Mute Button

Teams and Zoom has become a part of many peoples lives at work. I wanted to make a quick mute button that would save me scrabbling around for keyboard short cuts. While I was doing that I thought I might as well make it a headphone stand and solve 2 problems at once. This is an easy project requiring very little electronics knowledge and only a little handy work.

The project uses an Arduino pro micro to send a series of keyboard strokes after a single button press

One thing worthy of note, the button only works if the zoom/teams window is active i.e. you’re not surfing the internet or using another program while on the call. (I believe you can make a button that mutes background windows, but it requires installation of software on the computer which my work does not allow).

Arduino pro micro or Leonardo (must have ATmega32U4 chip, this is needed to act as a keyboard)

Micro USB extension (short)

Momentary push button (button that is only “on” when held down)

“On-Off-On” rocker switch (allows switching between Zoom and Teams mute)

Wire

Metal bar (~1.5 mm thick)

Wood for stand base ~16 mm thick

Cut the metal to length, this will depend on how big your headphones are and how tall the stand needs to be. To bend the metal clamp it to a work bench with another piece of wood on top, you can then bend the metal using your hands to the angle you like. Repeat the bending process at the other end of the metal.

Cut 2 squares of wood ~10 x 10 cm. Cut the middle out of one to form the bottom of the stack

In the top piece of wood drill a hole to fit the momentary push switch, and a notch to fit the bent metal stand (see diagram). In the bottom piece of wood cut 2 holes, one to fit the USB extension lead and one for the rocker switch

Glue the 2 pieces of wood together fitting the bent metal between the 2 pieces to form the stand

Fit the USB extension cable and Arduino into the base followed by the momentary button and rocker switch

Wire the Arduino and switches as shown in the diagram. The rocker switch is used to connect either pin 2 or 3 to the Arduino via the momentary button. Zoom and Teams use different keyboard short cuts for muting the microphone therefore one pin is used for Zoom and one pin for Teams

Upload the programme attached to the Arduino (or copy and paste the programme below into the Arduino programmer). The programme can be altered for other programs that use different keyboard short cuts, just change the Keyboard.press(KEY_LEFT_xxxx); command in the Arduino programme.

#include <Keyboard.h>            //Including the keyboard library

int pinA = 2;               //Declaring variables for the pins

int pinB = 3;

void setup() {

pinMode(pinA, INPUT_PULLUP);   //Setting up the internal pull-ups resistors

pinMode(pinB, INPUT_PULLUP);

}

void loop() {

 if (digitalRead(pinA) == LOW) //Checking if the switch has been pressed

 {

   Keyboard.press(KEY_LEFT_CTRL);

   Keyboard.press(KEY_LEFT_SHIFT);

   Keyboard.press('M');

   delay(200);

   Keyboard.releaseAll();

   // ALT-l:

   delay(500);

 }/* */

if (digitalRead(pinB) == LOW) //Checking if the switch has been pressed

 {

   Keyboard.press(KEY_LEFT_CTRL);

   Keyboard.press('a');

   delay(200);

   Keyboard.releaseAll();

   delay(500);

 }

}

To switch between Teams and Zoom flick the rocker switch on the back. Pressing the momentary button during a call will toggle between mute and unmute.