Show HN: LuxBase – Open-Source Smart Lighting Control System

Show HN: LuxBase – Open-Source Smart Lighting Control System(github.com)

38 points by kienankb 10 years ago | 13 comments

You can also use the pins of a RaspberryPi as a PWN output and do the same thing with only 3 inexpensive power transistors: http://mitchtech.net/raspberry-pi-pwm-rgb-led-strip/

Instead of servoblaster I recommend you to use PiBlaster: https://github.com/sarfata/pi-blaster

kienankb 10 years ago | |

Awesome, thanks for the heads up! Like it says in the blog post, PWM + transistors was an option I was thinking of (and still am if I ever decided to dip into dedicated hardware later on), I just wasn't sure if I had the electronics chops yet to not blow something up.

mjg59 10 years ago |

I picked up a http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017CKVG7G a couple of months ago - it's pretty terrible in terms of build quality and range, but it's a simple Bluetooth LE protocol for full RGB control of the lights, and you can run multiple sets off a single machine with a bluetooth 4.0 controller. Rather than using a custom protocol I bridged it to something that emulates enough of a Hue hub for the Amazon Echo to let me control it. I don't know how the economics compare, but there's plenty of avenues to explore here.

kienankb 10 years ago | |

Well hey, would you look at that. Exactly what I'm trying to do!

Heh I was shooting for the REST API because I figured there's nothing that doesn't communicate through it today. I'll have to check into it more, especially if I decide to do dedicated stuffs down the line. I am a fan of the multiple strips thing.

mjg59 10 years ago | | |

The bridge code is at https://github.com/mjg59/ulfire but doesn't have the Bluetooth code since I haven't got it working reliably yet (the machine I'm testing with has an ancient version of Bluez, and I need to upgrade that before doing more testing). I'll push that in the near future. It's pretty board specific though, I've found at least 6 different Bluetooth LE protocols for lighting so far. The easiest way to do it for testing is to just call out to gatttool in the callbacks.

sdwisely 10 years ago |

rather than using addressable LED strips I've been using some RGBW LED Par Cans over DMX.

I use a raspberry pi running openlighting to act as bridge between artnet, osc and a few other protocols and control it over the network.

openlighting: https://www.openlighting.org/

kienankb 10 years ago | |

This is all new to me, I'll definitely check it out. Thanks!

ParanoidShroom 10 years ago |

I also made this. https://medium.com/@christophe.smet1/flux-irl-building-a-hue...

But a bit more, custom pcb and just an app. Keeping it simple. Cool to see other people's projects

fit2rule 10 years ago |

If anyone is looking for an out-of-the-box solution to get started writing Lighting control applications, you can pick up a MagicShifter right now for a good price and get cracking:

http://magicshifter.net/

Open Source, full repo for the onboard MS3KOS here:

http://github.com/magicshifter/

The MagicShifter is an open source Light Synthesizer with 16 RGB LED's, fully controllable over Wifi, with cool features such as an onboard web application for designing your own POV images, MIDI control (great for musicians who want their own custom light-show in sync with the drum machine), and a few other cool things: magnetometer, accelerometers, etc.

We have a lot more planned for this synth, so if you're interested in the subject - consider joining us!

ShirsenduK 10 years ago |

The ESP8266 is an even smarter solution as it has Wifi built in. Control your lights directly from your phone!

spangry 10 years ago |

Kudos for sharing. Btw I read your blog post on the project and really enjoyed it; you write well!

kienankb 10 years ago | |

Hey, thanks! I appreciate it--I try to take pride in what I do as well as how I describe it.