Awesome ws2812

A curated list of awesome resources for ws281x LED strips and matrices.

Most of them are meant to be controlled using ESP8266 chips programmed with Arduino.

If you have an awesome project that is not listed here yet, your Pull Request is very welcome!

What is ws2812

The ws2812 is an intelligent control LED light source, with the control circuit and RGB chip integrated directly into a 5050 RGB LED.

Some features:

• The control circuit and the LED share the only power source.
• Built-in electric reset circuit and power lost reset circuit.
• Each pixel of the three primary color can achieve 256 brightness display, completed 16777216 color full color display, and scan frequency not less than 400Hz/s.
• Cascading port transmission signal by single line.

Contents

Libraries

LED strips

• Adafruit NeoPixel - Arduino library for controlling single-wire LED pixels (NeoPixel, WS2812, etc.)
• blynk - Blynk library for embedded hardware.
• FastLED - Library for colored LED animation on Arduino
• ledcat - Simple utility that aims to provide a standard interface for driving LED-strips and such.
• NeoPixelBus - Adafruit enhanced NeoPixel support library.
• WS2812FX - Drop-in replacement for the Adafruit NeoPixel library with additional features.
• raspi_ws2812 - A kernel module able to run as many WS2812 strips as there are GPIO pins on Raspberry Pi Zero.
• rpi_ws281x - Userspace Raspberry Pi PWM library for WS281X LEDs.

LED matrices

• Adafruit NeoMatrix - Adafruit_GFX-compatible library for NeoPixel grids.
• LEDMatrix - FastLED Flexible Matrix Class.
• LEDSprites - FastLED Sprite Class requires LEDMatrix Class.
• LEDText - FastLED Flexible Text Message Class requires LEDMatrix Class.

LED strip controllers

• ArduLED 1.0 and 2.0 - Control NeoPixels (ws2812b) easier than ever with an Arduino!
• EspFire2012 - Testing of NeoPixel libraries to do fire simulation with Fire2012.
• McLighting v2 and v3 - The ESP8266 based multi-client lighting gadget.
• Music LED Strip Control - LED strip audio visualization in real time with web interface on a Raspberry Pi.
• Music Reactive WS2812B Arduino - LED STRIP WS2812B reacting to music connected through your AUX 3.5mm Jack.
• Responsive LED Control - Responsive Led Control based on McLightning & Grisworld-Led-Controller with FastLED.
• Simple LED Strip Controller - ESP8266 Based LED light strip controller via a web browser.
• xmas-tree - XMAS Tree from stacked ws2812 rings driven by a Digispark.
• WLED - Control WS2812B RGB LEDs with an ESP8266 over WiFi!
• WS2812Serial - Non-Blocking WS2812 LED Library.

LED matrix controllers

• FB.Light - WiFi-LED-Strip-Controller with NTP-driven scrolling clock, text and other effects.
• White Rabbit - Neopixel based XY Matrix running via Raspberry Pi to display time, weather, and news.

Tools

• HTML5 LED Matrix - An HTML5 Canvas LED Matrix Simulator.
• LED Matrix Simulator - A simple HTML5 LED Matrix Simulator for fun.
• FastLED Simulator - Empowers non coder to create art with RGB-led light strips.
• Matrix display store - Tools for creating Led Matrix content.
• NeoMatrix Generator - NeoMatrix VISIWIG graphics editor.

Projects

• Audio Reactive LED Matrix - Code for 16x16 LED Matrix (WS2812) that reacts to sounds detected from an electret microphone, and switches modes with a momentary push button.
• ESP8266 NeoPixel Dashboard - ESP8266 based Neopixel dashboard, it shows current time, can show a custom message and have upto 41 prebuild effects.
• NeoPixel2048 - Implementation of the popular game '2048' built using a 4x4 NeoPixel Matrix and powered by the Arduino micro-controller.
• LED Lightpainter - A DIY Pixelstick clone for Light Painting using the ESP8266 and a WS2812 Strip.
• LED Matrix Shades - Wearable LED matrix shaped like slotted sunglasses.
• LED Protest Sign Scroller - WS2812 Matrix Protest Sign.
• Rpi Matrix - A simple RaspberryPi clock and browser simulator.
• Satellite tracker - Project that shows satellites and space junk flying overhead.
• WordClock - A clock that tells time in plain text (video).
• LedFX - Sync your WLED Devices with your music using E1.31

Videos

• 1000 Addressable LED Lights Project Overview
• Fire2012: fire simulation for Arduino and LEDs
• Using I2S on the ESP8266 to drive WS2812Bs

Miscellanea

• Adafruit NeoPixel Überguide
• Best practices to avoid damaging your NeoPixels.
• How to drive 5V WS2812 from a 3.3V microcontroller using just one resistor and one diode.