Show HN: Audio-Responsive, Hackable LED Light | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Audio-Responsive, Hackable LED Light

blog.saikoled.com

40 pointsneltnerb27 comments

Thank you so much for building this and thank you so much for building this on Open hardware. I can already see a lot of use-cases for this - For example commercial complexes like expensive theaters and 5-star lounges where many people visit everyday. You have your own niche, please don't listen to any of the negative comments (like how this would improve this your life, etc.) It certainly has its place and it would be great if you could drop in your skype, I'd love to have a chat about this (Packaging, Target audience, Marketing, etc)

Cheers, Neya

The lights are finally here! How exciting, Brian and Dan. As a visual artist, I've seen first-hand the awesome effects the lights can deliver when viewing artwork. Combining those effects with programmable and responsive audio control is a fantastic next step. The ability for users to program the lights will allow them to enhance creativity in their visual, art, and audio projects.

I saw some of these installed at Burning Man last year. They looked great! If I had time to play with blinky lights this would totally be my first choice.

This product looks fantastic, congratulations on creating the product and good luck on the production/marketing phase. One question that comes to mind is does it only respond to specific audio frequencies? Like how does it differentiate between someone talking, versus music playing?

So this is fairly up to the user, actually. There are several implementations of a FFT like algorithm that run on the Arduino, so any of those should be usable to get frequency data. It's also of course possible to do something like wavelet analysis to pick out more complex patterns. For my example I just did a simple envelope follower with beat detection and a rotating hue, but that's just because I'm (personally) not a great programmer. I think that the right person could make this way, way better than I could on my own =) I see this as one of the great strengths of doing this open source, we can build it together instead of each keeping our secrets like the "big fish".

I realize you are trying to show off the product in the video, but the lighting on you guys in the video could be a bit less distracting. Still, I absolutely love the idea of a big bright multicolored LED I can control! Good stuff!

i totally agree kordless, more mykis set up in white mode would have been good front lighting :)

Would there be any chance of getting early access to a developer version, maybe on loan? I'd like to add support for these to my automation equipment (see my profile for a link).

cool stuff. we may be running another contest soon, focused on the west coast to give away prototypes. sign up for our announcement list or email us via the website.

Can anyone please explain what is this in plain English? (or rather: for programmers who don't understand hardware but think this is cool)

OK> It's a light that you can program over USB using the Arduino IDE. There is already a library/api in development so you can say "light.rgbSend(0x8000,0,0,0xFFFF);" and it will create bright white with half-on red (notice the 16-bit color resolution--not just 0-255).

The microphone input will have software frequency binning so you can--say-- trigger green whenever you hear a bass drum in the music.

Very slick. Though I'm unfamiliar with the space... you say this is cheap, what would a comparable component cost?

LED strand lighting is in the $30-40 range, but has no controller or power supply. Professional grade equipment is in the $300 range. There's a range in between, but for context, the LED itself is a $10 part.

This might be tangential, but the project reminds me of http://www.truonex.com/afro/wristwave

Imagine walking into a party where everyone's clothes are reacting in different patterns according to the music!

Hey does anyone have any ideas for integrating these into a computer science curriculum?

The description says that it is "hackable," so in that sense I'm sure you would be able to play with the coding and program in specific color patterns, or play with the timing?

Correct. There are a ton of examples already and it's programmable like any Arduino is. What I'm wondering about is what the curriculum goals are in different districts.

I have one of these guys' previous gen devices and it is awesome. Super bright and a very flexible board.

Honestly, how would spending $79 on this improve my life?

Depends on if you're an artist, or hacker. It greatly simplifies the process of making high-powered LEDs that respond to music. Also, if you buy ~10 you'll be helping a student somewhere because when these are made, a portion are being given away to schools.

That actually entirely avoided the question I asked.

A better question would be: Why spend money on anything other than cancer research?

Let's answer that question instead. Because it's obviously at all relevant.

"It greatly simplifies the process of making high-powered LEDs that respond to music."

I am not sure it would, move along :)

Well, it certainly improves it better than this throwaway profile you just created to comment on this thread.

Hardly. I'm just new here.

See my other comments.

My point is that if I was an investor, I'd ask the same question. If I was an engineer (which I am), I'd not ignore the commercial implication of no answer to that question.

That's for you to decide.

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