[nimbius]

"a lot of times my mother asks me if she can come in the room for reasons I won't get into"

You've appeared to engineer your way around an interpersonal relationship that you lack the emotional, social intelligence and maturity to deal with.

Welcome to the front page of HN i guess. you're well on the way to becoming a founder.

[mhurron]

The only one showing any lack of social intelligence is you. The author is choosing not to go into unnecessary personal details while giving a short back story as to why they did a thing.

I've thought of doing basically something similar so my wife knows I'm in a position not to be disturbed. I can, and do, tell her when I have a scheduled call, but unscheduled calls do just happen. Something like this would let her know I can't be disturbed without her coming in, asking and then going 'oh shit, sorry.'

In no way is it engineering a way out of dealing with my wife.

[venturecruelty]

The nice thing about boundaries is you are not required to explain yourself. "Hey, please don't interrupt me between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM, unless it is an emergency. I need to get work done, and interruptions break my concentration. Thank you for understanding." You also don't need to build complicated devices.

[deathanatos]

… or there's just a lot of awkwardness for both parties in trying to communicate "are you on camera?" without the person who is potentially on camera revealing that communication to the stream.

The person entering has to make sure they're not on camera — if the room's architecture even allows for that — the person answering has to somehow communicate to that person without people looking at their video feed noticing. I've gestured things to my fiancée while on air, and while they were pretty clearly intended for "someone off camera", still managed to confuse the meeting participants.

Radio booths and other broadcasts have done this for ages with the "On Air" sign, which basically what TFA has made.

[pwg]

Spoken like someone who does not have a "second person" around while they are working from home.

Unless the "other people" (spouses/partners/parents/etc.) also work a from home job, they simply do not internalize that the work from home individual is "at work" in the same manner as if that individual were away in an office. And for some of them, no amount of explanation ever sinks in to fully internalize the fact that "when I'm working from home, I am not available to also solve all the problems you create for yourself throughout the day".

Most all of them, however, do actually pay attention to and understand the meaning of a "do not disturb" sign on the door.

[venturecruelty]

It's hard to deal with a parent who doesn't respect your boundaries. I agree, I don't think more transistors can adequately solve what is actually a communication issue. I hope OP looks into codependency/enmeshment, because some parent-child relationships, especially mother-son ones, become enmeshed, and this results in things like the mother not having appropriate boundaries with the son. This might look like, for example, frequently interrupting you in a private space.

[nasmorn]

Maybe the reasons he doesn’t get into is that the only working toilet is only accessible through this room and his mom cannot avoid going in several times a day. Maybe it also stores her Polly Pocket collection and she has a strong need to check a specific doll multiple times a day. Knowing moms I consider the later more likely