MX Machina

Inspiration

We've all been there, trying to stay focused, only to break our flow checking the time, switching tabs for our next meeting, or manually tracking work sessions. We realized the MX Master 4's Actions Ring was the perfect interface for productivity controls, sitting right under your thumb where you need it most.

What it does

MX Machina turns the Logitech Actions Ring into a seamless productivity command center. With a single gesture, you can start Pomodoro sessions, activate Focus Mode to silence distractions, and view real-time productivity insights. All of these features are accessible without leaving your current application.

We also built a Google Calendar powered focus visualization: your completed sessions automatically appear in your weekly calendar. This helped us realize when during the week we actually focused, giving us a more accurate sense of progress and reducing the feeling of “I didn’t accomplish anything.”

MX Machina brings together timers, automation, and analytics into a smooth workflow that lives right on your mouse.

How we built it

We developed MX Machina as a Logitech Options+ plugin using the C# implementation of their Actions SDK. The backend handles Google Calendar OAuth integration and stores productivity metrics, while the frontend dashboard visualizes focus sessions and calendar data. The Pomodoro timer integrates with system notifications, and focus mode coordinates with active applications on the macOS-based host.

Challenges we ran into

Working with the Logitech Actions SDK turned out to be more difficult than expected. The documentation was limited, so we relied heavily on experimentation and reverse-engineering to understand how to properly integrate the Actions Ring.

Interacting with the Google Calendar API also came with its own hurdles (mainly around authentication) but we were able to resolve those issues fairly quickly.

Even the Pomodoro timer, which seemed straightforward at first, became complex once we connected it to our other services. Synchronizing timers, calendar updates, and focus-mode events required careful coordination and a good amount of debugging.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We built a seamless, unobtrusive productivity tool that enhances your workflow without adding any friction and triggered from a single hardware button. We believe, the visualization of completed focus sessions and the integrated statistics dashboard can genuinely help us stay aware of our productivity patterns, both in our university work and beyond.

What we learned

Hardware integration requires patience and creative problem-solving when documentation is limited. We also learned that the best productivity tools are the ones you forget you're using, as they enhance your existing workflow rather than demanding you adapt to them.

What's next for MX Machina

We're planning Slack/Teams integration for status updates during focus sessions, AI-powered focus time recommendations based on your productivity patterns, and support for additional Logitech devices and Windows OS to increase our potential user base. We'd also love to add team analytics for organizations to understand collective focus patterns and optimize meeting culture.

Built With

• c#
• google-cloud
• logitech