Schlagwort: LED Lighting

  • Upgrade your shop with voice-controlled smart LED lighting

    Upgrade your shop with voice-controlled smart LED lighting

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Congratulations! You finally have a garage to call your own and you’re ready to turn it into the workshop of your dreams. But before you go on a shopping spree in Home Depot’s tools section, you may want to consider upgrading from that single dim lightbulb to more substantial lighting — otherwise, you’ll never find the screws you drop on the ground. LeMaster Tech can help with his great video on installing DIY voice-controlled smart LED lighting.

    LeMaster Tech’s primary goal was simply to increase the brightness in the garage. He took the route that gives the best bang for the buck: LED tubes. Those are similar in form factor to fluorescent light tubes, but they can put out more lumens with fewer watts and they tend to last a lot longer. They also don’t need expensive and bulky ballasts. LeMaster Tech installed several of those on the ceiling of his garage, then took things to the next level.

    These LED light tubes work with standard household mains AC power, so they can be wired like regular light bulbs. But instead, LeMaster Tech made them smart by wiring them through a relay board controlled by an Arduino UNO Rev3 board. That lets the Arduino safely switch each light tube on and off. LeMaster Tech gave it the ability to do that in response to voice commands by adding a DFRobot Gravity voice recognition module. That handy module works entirely offline and uses a simple AI to recognize spoken words. It has 121 built-in words and supports 17 custom words, so LeMaster Tech was able to tailor it to his needs.

    Now he can switch the lights with a simple voice command and even activate pre-programmed effects, like flashing the lights. 

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6Vg9dT7hsU?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    The post Upgrade your shop with voice-controlled smart LED lighting appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • HEXA LEDs make Bluetooth-controlled accent lighting affordable

    HEXA LEDs make Bluetooth-controlled accent lighting affordable

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    LED accent lighting is very trendy right now, as it can add quite a lot of visual interest to a room without introducing clutter. But commercial products are often either very expensive or subpar in quality and capability. Fortunately for makers, this kind of project is perfect for a DIY weekend build. One great option is Nancy’s HEXA LEDs, which are gorgeous, affordable, and controllable via Bluetooth®.

    Nancy’s design work here is fantastic and HEXA LEDs look awesome. As the name suggests, they’re hexagonal arrangements of LEDs. They’re modular, which gives the builder the freedom to create whatever pattern they like. It is even possible to have HEXA LEDs flow from a wall onto the ceiling or around a corner to an adjacent wall. An Android app (sorry, no iOS app available) lets the user control the LED effects, animations, and colors.

    To create your own HEXA LEDs decor, you will first need to decide on the pattern you want. From there, you can 3D-print all the required parts. Those include the supports that mount to the wall, the diffusers that cover the LEDs, the electronics housing, and so on. The brain of the system is either an Arduino Nano or a Nano Every board. An HC-06 module allows for communication with the Android app. Illumination comes from strips of WS2812B individually addressable RGB LEDs. Proper power distribution is critical and becomes more complex as you add more LEDs, so be sure to follow Nancy’s instructions carefully.

    If you want LED wall art that will wow your visitors, then you don’t need to look any further.

    The post HEXA LEDs make Bluetooth-controlled accent lighting affordable appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK