WiFi RGBW controller and driver

peter_hellyer · 19 August 2018 13:38

Does anyone have a recommendation for a driver and WiFi controller for a few metres of RGBW led strip? There’s seemingly a trillion controller options one could pair with a constant voltage supply, but I’m a bit wary of blindly buying a controller on amazon, in case of sudden unexpected explosion…

I was going to make one myself using some esp32 magic, but my desire to see the back of this project is greater than my want to do it from scratch.

Oli · 19 August 2018 13:40

I use MiLight stuff just because it’s cheap and has an API if you want to talk directly to it.
Controller + Hub

It’s quite consumer, but it works. Old Milight stuff used TCP and was unreliable, the new stuff uses UDP and is rock solid. You can get it cheaper than above, but comes from china with 6 weeks shipping.

They make lots of different Controllers for the various LEDs you may have, ensure you select the right one for full control / compatibility.

naxxfish · 19 August 2018 22:34

Arilux lc-02

Stock firmware is a bit pants, but they’re just ESP8266 boards and you can easily reflash them, with something like this

github.com

mertenats/Arilux_AL-LC0X/blob/master/README.md

[![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/mertenats/Arilux_AL-LC0X.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/mertenats/Arilux_AL-LC0X)

# Alternative firmware for Arilux LED controllers
This is an alternative firmware for Arilux LED controllers which uses [MQTT] instead of the default "Magic Home"/"Flux LED" protocol which has numerous reliability problems.
The LED controller is a cheap product available on sites like Banggood.com, Aliexpress, eBay and even Amazon which can be easily reprogrammed as it is based on the popular [ESP8266 Wi-Fi chip][esp8266].
The controllers are also known to sell under different manufacturer names such as "Firstd". If the product you bought looks similar to one of the Arilux controllers below, it most likely is.


**WARNING: DUE TO A NEW PINOUT, THIS FIRMWARE SEEMS TO BE NOT MORE COMPATIBLE WITH THE NEWEST MODELS (PCB version > 1.4).**


![Arilux](images/Arilux.png)

## Features
- Remote control over the MQTT protocol via individual topics or JSON
  - Supports transitions, flashing and effects in JSON mode
- Remote control with the included IR control (uncomment `#define IR_REMOTE` in `config.h`)
- Remote control with the included RF control (uncomment `#define RF_REMOTE` in `config.h`)
- TLS support (uncomment `#define TLS` in `config.h` and change the fingerprint if not using CloudMQTT)
- Debug printing over Telnet (uncomment `#define DEBUG_TELNET` in `config.h`)

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And you can configure it to use MQTT instead

peter_hellyer · 20 August 2018 11:12

thanks folks! both great recomendations - more tempted to go with the 8266 based one though - just because I’m only doing two runs - the milight (which I understand to be based on off-brand zigbee?) approach would be a great solution if I was doing more automation elsewhere