Eryk.io is a personal blog which deals with home automation and Internet of Things. In series of experiments, an attempt was made to write a software based on an RGB led strip with Wi-Fi controller. It contains a chip called ESP8266 chip, which can be hacked and one can write its own software for it.
In order to give a try, accumulate or buy an RGB LED strip light, LED strip light waterproof with flexible bar light strips RGB + white/WW light and RGBWW LED strip light Wi-Fi controller. The most interesting part among above equipment is H801 Wi-Fi controller, which has connections for R/G/B/VCC (out) on the left side, and W2 (warm white)/W1(white),GND,VCC(in) on the right side.
As it is visible from the photo, it has two onboard LEDs one for power and other for Wi-Fi. A Wi-Fi access point is created by the controller when the controller is powered.
There are pins available on this board to reprogram the device if you are really not comfortable with the setup and don’t want to connect to the Wi-Fi network of this controller every time or want to change the color. Further, for the casing, a small circuit board that includes the ESP8266 chip, is available.
On the chip, there are 4 connection points for TX, RX, GND and 3V3, where some pins can be soldered onto the board to hook it up to FTDI USB programmer. But, if the device is powered with 12V on the VCC (in) and GND, it is not necessary to use those pins on the board. After it is connected to PC, the device can be programmed using the Arduino IDE. All you need is to install ESP8266 in the IDE using the Board Manager to select the Generic ESP8266 board in the Arduino IDE.
You can find codes, written to test the device and also to connect the device to the specified Wi-Fi network. The codes are also used to start a webserver on the IP which it gets from the DHCP server. Further, a video is also included to show the result along with a script, which is used to make a call to the H801’s webserver every 2 seconds, and change it to a different color.
Filed Under: Reviews
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