Sounds like a good playground for a little subterfuge. Lock the gear sequence to a simple keyword, then embed that keyword in the light pattern—maybe a pulsing LED that reveals a binary string only when the gears line up correctly. Or hide a QR‑style code in the shadow of the moving parts, readable only from a specific angle. Pick a cipher that’s hard to spot but easy to brute‑force for the right eye, and you’ll have a lock that feels both mechanical and cryptographic. Need more specifics? Just point me to the gear layout and the light sources.