There was a time, believe it or not, where one would want to know whether or not the Chicago White Sox were currently playing. In the halcyon days of 2019, I sought out to do just that as a sensor that I could trigger off of in Home Assistant. Since HA includes REST API as a sensor platform and MLB includes a pretty darn good free API, it was quick work to get a “Are the White Sox playing?” sensor loaded up:
But then, of course, was what to do with it. I didn’t want more notifications on my phone (which was part of the point of the project) but I had the realization that I had one of those “Let’s Go ” stoplights that I had received as a gift. A quick order of Sonoff Basic inline wifi switches and flashing them with Tasmota firmware later, I had something to trigger:
Though I did have to add a “spoiler alert” delay to the off trigger, as MLB’s API would often times update while the game was still broadcasting on MLB.tv.
This is still in use in my house. It’s nice to have an unobtrusive but still visible way to tell that the team is playing. It also led to me replacing any rotary on/off switches in the house with Sonoffs, smartening up otherwise dumb or hard-to-reach lamps.