OctoWS2811 VS Lamp

I highly recommend the Teensy 4.x with the OctoWS2811 driver. This driver provides 8 channels of parallel output using DMA data transfers to offload the CPU. I think that meets your criterion for "hardware SPI". It doesn't seem like the T4 is overkill for what you're doing, especially if you're using floating point math. The T4 is blazing fast, and I've heard mixed reviews of ESP32 FP performance.

They are actually quite easy if you have some cash. Check out NeoPixel at Adafruit, they have a detailed guide on how you can control strip lights. NeoPixels are great but a tad expensive, you can find less expensive strips on discount resellers, search for “RGB Addressable LED Strip”. Some offer a control module but you will be limited the the built-in color patterns and speeds. If you can solder and program an Arduino you can modify example scripts to do a lot of things, even create digital signage and video walls.

Assuming you're going to use the OctoWS2811 library to drive the LEDs, the maximum possible frame rate for 2 channels of 1,008 LEDs should be:

However, if you have all 600 LEDs in a single strip, and the strip is WS2812, then you're limited by the internal refresh rate of the LEDs, which brings you to about 55hz. Which is ok, but if you spend much time in-between refreshs, maybe it's not fast enough. Certainly not for persistence-of-vision. If you're happy to break your strip into several sub-strips that get their own data line, you can speed up the refresh rate a lot. If you're using a Teensy 4, you can use this library for example, which allows you to efficiently drive many LED strips at once: https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_libs_OctoWS2811.html

You can also check out OctoWS2811 https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_libs_OctoWS2811.html

I've used RGBW for a number of projects involving non-addressable LED strips and spot lights. I haven't yet needed RGBW for a project requiring addressable strips, but it's in my tech roadmap. I no longer use FastLED, and I've written my own HSV/HSI-to-RGB/RGBW color conversion library. I use the OctoWS2811 library (not the adapter board) for DMA-based serial data output to addressable LED strips. It appears that this library supports RGBW strips, but I haven't tried it yet (others are doing the same). See the last few paragraphs of this article for more details.

But the OctoWS2811 Library can only use 8 Pins, at least on the page is only for a Teensy 4.0 and 4.1 the hint, that any group of pins is possible.

And for those new here, here is the story of my lamp

Exactly. /u/zumdar the result would be the function at the bottom of FastLED_RGBW.h in this sketch. There is also this with many FastLED operators and some functions modified for RGBW.

I've done a whole write up on the build here

I used the FastLED hack for white LEDs and it worked fine. The code for my lamp is here

I tried the hack out myself and it works fine if in a somewhat limited capacity. That said, I've expanded the hack to include more functionality

For more info, check out my build

scroll down this page to see my findings on SK6812 led ribbons. Basically, I started with the hack that u/Johnny5canuck pointed out and have considerably extended it as and where needed.

It's possible, but hacky, to drive RGBW with FastLED. Be sure to follow the links at the top of that file for more information. Only a small selection of FastLED's functions have been modified to work with the RGBW type. Those that have been modified haven't necessarily been changed in the most appropriate and optimal ways to get the best out of RGBW.

Generally you are quite right but I found a workaround (hack) that works just great with my lamp here is the code you just need to add.

I used this async web server example to go on and build myself a customized page to control my lamp