WLED Arduino WiFi LED Controller
github.com
github.com
- Kids bedside lamps. Using the timed preset changes in WLED it goes from bright white/blue for reading time, then at bedtime it plays a rainbow animation and fades to a bright orange with pulses of similar colours, then throughout the next hour fades to a gentle animation of soft colours that stay on all night as their nightlights.
- Down-lighting on shelving, using strips of LEDs under each shelf lip. Gives a nice bright warm-white glow to everything on the shelves which shifts to a soft blue at night for mood lighting in the room.
- Ambient lighting throughout various rooms that is controlled via Home Assistant.
- LED strips on my 3D printers which are turned on via Octoprint when the printers start warming up, and stay on throughout the prints for timelapses then the lights all go green when the prints are finished.
... and many more. Every single one of those projects were simple 1-day affairs thanks to WLED. Stick the LEDs where you want them, wire them up to an ESP + a PSU (usually an old phone charger with a chopped USB cable to split out power), and flash the ESP and boot. Then the rest is done sitting down with your phone and playing with the sequence editor or choosing presets/timers.
Blue at night might not be the best choice https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-ha...
It even has Alexa support that's as easy as checking a box! Love WLED and how easy it is to use even for a non-hardware guy like me.
If you consider building a setup, I would only recommend ensuring your wiring is correct and the power supplies are sufficient for the LEDs you're using, unless the board's built-in power output (probably with a level shifter to 5V) is enough.
- I wanted a semi-permanent lighting fixture for Christmas, but something that would work for other holidays as well. I took a bunch of bullet-style leds and inserted them into holes I drilled on a piece of material that matched the gutters. Mounted them just underneath the gutter, you don't even see them unless you're looking for them. "Hanging" my xmas lights outdoors means I hit one IOT button that turns on the power supply, then I can navigate to the private IP attached to the strand. The interface is easy enough that the kids/missus change the lights whenever they feel like it.
- Two years in a row now for Halloween, I used WLED for my pumpkin carving. Carve out the inside, then drill evenly-spaced holes around the pumpkin and insert the same bullet-style LEDs into each hole facing the outside. Wifi-enabled pumpkin. The neighborhood kids call us "the house with the UFO pumpkin that gives out full-sized candybars".
I know a lot of people use them punched through maps, for live METARS displays
Here's their list of compatible hardware: https://github.com/Aircoookie/WLED/wiki/Compatible-hardware
Pixelblaze is really nice and in many ways the more advanced option, but for most things I go for a <$5 board with WLED or FastLED over $35 (+shipping +tax) for a PixelBlaze.
There exists even a sound reactive fork. Which analyzes(volume and FFT based) the audio directly on the ESP32.
The biggest differentiator is that Pixelblaze is built around the user being able to define their own patterns, while WLED is more built around getting a turn-key setup as easily as possible. One of the downsides to the Pixelblaze, for me, has been in instances where I just want a simple thing like a specific color, or a simple fade or pattern. While you can do that on the Pixelblaze it can take more time to tweak the PB code vs. just moving a couple of sliders in the WLED interface.