A Silly Usecase for Websockets

I made this website on 04-07-2020, inspired by a friend who, for some reason, really wanted a website where you could flic a light on and off.

At first you could do just that, but then someone asked whether other people could see whether the light was turned on or off. I thought that would be cool, so I looked at how to do it. As it turns out, it is quite easy to do this with websockets. The result is a website where you can turn a lamp on or off for everybody else to see.

I posted the website on hackernews, where it actually got to the hot page.

When I made the website I did not think about adding a strobe warning, because it was not necessary when it was just me and a few friends. But when more than 300 people try to hit a light switch you can imagine the result. Also, hackernews being hackernews, some people automated this and unsurprisingly crashed their browser and the website.

But some people did actually enjoy the website, so I'm happy:

You can find the website here, or try it out below:

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