Ask HN: What are the best programmable holiday lights?

1. WLED

   1 603 15,859 9.8 C++

   Control WS2812B and many more types of digital RGB LEDs with an ESP8266 or ESP32 over WiFi!

   

   https://kno.wled.ge/

   Many 'effects' already prepackaged. Plus the ability to schedule time based changes (on/off/change pattern/etc.). Includes a web server to provide "app like" control over a phone or PC. Also includes integrations for several "home control" systems and a http API for programmatic control from another system. Can even synchronize plural controllers into a whole 'net' (note, I've not used this feature yet).

   Small ESP32 boards (with wifi capability) such as this example (no affiliation, just an example that works):

   https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09Y8X1GK7

   WS2811 LED strings [1] (of which there are an infinite variety) suitable for outdoor use. One example (no affiliation):

   https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CYZF1WCR

   Suitable power supplies, outdoor weather sealed boxes, and wiring (all left to you to locate).

   Willingness to assemble the pieces and some time to do so. Having a soldering iron is helpful here, although one could possibly get by with screw terminal blocks inside weatherproof boxes if need be for many of the 'connections'.

   [1] Or other 'programmable LED' strings for which WLED is compatible (it works with numerous different programmable LED standards, browse the WLED website for details).

2. Nutrient

   www.nutrient.io featured

   Nutrient – The #1 PDF SDK Library, trusted by 10K+ developers. Other PDF SDKs promise a lot - then break. Laggy scrolling, poor mobile UX, tons of bugs, and lack of support cost you endless frustrations. Nutrient’s SDK handles billion-page workloads - so you don’t have to debug PDFs. Used by ~1 billion end users in more than 150 different countries.

   

3. xled

   2 2 223 3.5 Python

   🎄Unofficial control for Twinkly - Smart Decoration LED lights.

   

4. mpm

   3 1 57 - Java

   Java / OpenGL based framework for multi-projector 3D mapping and more. (by arisona)

   There are several open source projection mapper projects that run on a RaspPi, or other platforms, here are a few of them:

   https://github.com/arisona/mpm

   https://ofxpimapper.com/

   https://mapmapteam.github.io/

   There are media players and graphics generators that will run on a RaspPi also. Finding a bright enough projector and sheltering it for outdoor use might be the main challenge.

   Another approach might be a galvo scanned laser with DMX software to control it, though there may be safety/liability issues with that.

Suggest a related project