One of my first attempts to use the PiGlow was to give some indication of the state of a headless Pi Zero as it started up and sorted out its server processes.
One of the first add-ons I bought when I started playing with Raspberry Pi Zeroes was the Pimoroni PiGlow. This is a tiny pHat (Pimoroni term for a tiny Zero add-on board) which contains 3 spiral lines of 6 different coloured LEDs.