Kenny
Liz's witty receptionist.
The brief
I don’t want another notification surface. I want an object that knows what’s going on and tells me when I ask — or when something genuinely time-sensitive happens. Kenny is that object.
Why a receptionist
Receptionists have a specific job in the social architecture of an office: they hold context. They know who’s coming, when, and why. They tell you when the next thing is. They don’t interrupt you with everything — only with the things you’ve asked to be interrupted about. The pattern is a thousand years old and works because it’s about triage delegated to a calm presence in the room.
Software notifications are the opposite: every app gets equal volume; nothing is triaged; everything wants your attention now. Kenny is a deliberate inversion of that.
What Kenny watches
Cal.com — every new booking, reschedule, and cancellation lands on Kenny first. Soft amber LED pulse, one-line spoken summary, then quiet. If I’m not in the room, the LED stays warm until I notice. No queue, no badge count, no list to clear.
Gmail — Kenny doesn’t watch all mail. A small Cloud Function filters incoming messages against a tight allowlist: specific senders, specific labels, specific subject patterns. Only matches reach the device. The rest of my inbox stays an inbox.
On demand — pressing the button on top triggers a short briefing: today’s calls, today’s open threads, anything that needs a response. About fifteen seconds. Then quiet again.
The hardware
Google AIY Voice Kit, original cardboard edition, repurposed. Raspberry Pi Zero, single mic, small speaker, button, programmable LED. The cardboard housing went; Kenny lives in a small turned-wood enclosure that matches the desk. The hardware was discontinued by Google years ago — using it instead of buying something new is part of the thesis. Quiet, considered, reusing what’s already in the room.
The behaviour contract
The whole system stands on one rule: Kenny doesn’t interrupt me with anything I didn’t ask to be interrupted by. That’s the spec. Every other decision flows from it.
- Default state: dark LED, silent
- New booking: soft amber pulse, one short sentence, then quiet
- Match in the inbox filter: gentle blue glow until acknowledged
- Time-sensitive (meeting in 5 minutes, conflict just appeared): a single low chime, the only “push” Kenny does
- Button press: briefing on demand
- Anything else: ignored
Most software earns attention by demanding it. Kenny earns attention by deserving it.
Where it is now
Hardware reassembled, AIY firmware swapped for a small Python service. Cal.com webhook listener tested end-to-end against the staging account. Gmail watch is next — Pub/Sub push handler half-written. Target: continuous use by July.