#Pixelstick app how to#
#Pixelstick app install#
#Pixelstick app code#

Within the app you can select from the range of colours and the different effects to create a custom mix for whatever you’re trying to capture. The device is about two feed long and features a row of LED lights along one side that you can program via the Colorspike app.Īs well as a range of colours, you can also use the Colorspike to recreate the lighting effects of things like fire, lightning, emergency vehicles and more.

Like the Pixelstick, users can control the Colorspike via a companion app to make it produce any of its wide range of colours or effects. bmp files via the web interface.The creators of the Pixelstick have launched their next product, an LED strip called Colorspike that produces a wide range of colours and effects. bmp file stored in the ESP8266's file storage and it will be displayed column by column on the LED array (actually row by row as the image must be rotated). Some of these presets have parameters that can be adjusted to change the way the animation runs or, perhaps, the colour palette used. In block mode, you can choose to have either blocks of solid colours or a gradual transition from one colour to the next as you work along the row of LEDs.Ī selection of preset animations is available. For example, with four colours selected, you can either have groups of 36 LEDs in each of the four colours or each LED in each group of four LEDs is lit in one of the colours. They can be either in blocks or interleaved.

In this mode you can choose to light up the array with between 1-5 individually selectable colours. In practice, I've found 5A is plenty for typical patterns and images. If all 144 LEDs were fully illuminated in white, then the LEDs would need a little more than 8.5A so you do need to be aware of this. After a short delay (user settable in the interface), the LEDs will operate in the selected mode. If the LEDs are off, they can be activated in the current mode by pressing the user switch. Once it's up and running, you control the device from the web interface. If the indicator goes red for any reason, you can simply reconnect by reloading the web page. The menu bar is responsive and looks a little different depending on the device you're viewing it on. The connection status is shown as a green or red indicator at the right hand end of the menu bar, next to the battery voltage indicators. If there's a connection failure, the device drops back to WAP mode and a green sweep is seen instead.Īll communication after the web page is loaded is via websockets. A successful connection will be indicated by a sweep of the LEDs in blue rather than green. You can change these later via the web interface. If you hold the user switch closed until after the intial colour flashes as you power on, the device will attempt to connect to the WiFi network using the credentials in secrets.h. You'll see the inteface shown below and be able to control the pixelstick from it.

#Pixelstick app install#

My Android phone doesn't like mDNS and I didn't want to install Bonjour but you can use sjrps.local if your phone does. Connect your phone/laptop to the ESP8266's wifi and access webpage 192.168.4.1. By default it enters WAP mode and this is indicated by a brief sweep of the LEDs in green. When the device is first switched on, the LEDs flash red then green then blue to show it is alive. I wanted to have a constant, dependable rate. Some of the other apps I looked at just seem to let the refresh happen whenever it can. The LED refresh rate runs at a constant rate (eg every 20ms) but this can be varied in the interface. All interaction is then handled in the browser and commands/data exchanged via websockets.

To keep the Wifi load on the ESP8266 light, there is a single web page that is downloaded when you connect to the array, along with a.

#Pixelstick app code#

With the exception of the libraries I used and the motion patterns (thanks to those concerned), the code is largely my own, but there are undoubtedly bits of other things in there, too.

#Pixelstick app how to#

I looked at several other implementations before deciding how to go about this. You can choose to display either fixed patterns, motion patterns or bitmaps on the array. The application drives a 1m (144 LED) array of WS2812B RGB LEDs. My rusty C gradually took on some of the flavour of C++ as I was working on this, but there are no doubt weird things in here that will offend good C++ programmers. I knew C many years ago and have used Python and Java more recently. This is yet another pixelstick type application, written to run on an ESP8266 chip, specifically the Wemos/Lolin D1 Mini.įirst up, let me state for the record that I am neither a C++ nor a Javascript programmer.