You Can Build Your Own Emergency Mute Button for Microsoft Teams

When you feel a massive sneeze coming on in the middle of a video call, it can be hard to reach for the mute button before you blow out everyone's eardrums. If you're in the mood for doing a little bit of DIY, you can build your own emergency mute button for Microsoft Teams.

Making an Emergency Mute Button for Microsoft Teams

You can find all the instructions for making your own button on GitHub. The creator, Jennifer Fox, believes you can make your very own for $30 and 5-10 minutes of your time.

All you need is Adafruit Circuit Playground Express, a micro USB cable, two alligator clips, and a "Big Dome" button. Adafruit is an excellent brand for making your own smart gadgets; we recommend the company's speakers in our guide to building a Raspberry Pi Game Boy.

You wire up the button to the Adafruit and then download and deploy the GitHub page's code to make the button. When pressed, the button replicates a CTRL + Shift + M command, which mutes your microphone in Microsoft Teams. You can then mash the button as soon as your dog starts barking and save your teammates' ears during a meeting.

Making Microsoft Teams Easier With Shortcuts

If you find it hard to reach for the mute button during a minor emergency, you can make it easier on yourself and build an emergency button to do the job for you. As the work-from-home life becomes the norm, we'll have to see how else people get creative with their remote working software.

If you didn't know that CTRL + Shift + M mutes your microphone on Teams, you owe it to yourself to study all the shortcuts the program uses. They can really speed up your productivity once you get used to them.

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