As part of something bigger I’m looking to build I put together a prototype of a WS2812B LED strip being controlled with an Arduino and an Android App via Bluetooth. If you haven’t come across these WS2812B LEDs, they are cheap as chips, easy to program via a micro controller and can produce 16 million colours. In this demo I’m using the following :
- An Android device and the Bluetooth API (I used a Note 3 but anything with Bluetooth should do)
- An Arduino Nano (~£4 on ebay but you get what you pay for in terms of reliability with the cheap clones)
- An HM-10 BLE device (again about £4)
- A strip of WS2812B LEDs (about $5 per metre from aliexpress)
The demo app I’ve put together here lets you control Hue, Saturation and Brightness once a connection is established. The code is on GitHub.
The firmware for the Arduino is based around the excellent FastLED animation library. Its great for controlling the 2812 device and basic colour conversion maths.