Running Neopixels with an ESP8266 and Blynk

Projects
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I don’t have any of those fancy pants remote controls for LED light strips so I made one with bynk…it’s a pretty impressive IOT app you can find here: http://www.blynk.cc

I followed this tutorial and got things set up pretty quickly. https://www.instructables.com/id/IOT-ESP-8266-Nodemcu-Controlling-Neopixel-Ws2812-L/

And here is my wifi LED strip remote in action:

Some pluses of the app:

  • control pretty much any IOT board
  • customize your interface by adding sliders/buttons/joysticks/etc
  • share your projects with anyone anywhete via the app and they can control your project from afar (perfect for putting your web-enabled cat feeder online)

Next project: once I have some more free time I’ll hack my roomba and then add it to blynk so I can schedule it from my phone while lying on the sofa eating bon bons.

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what kind of bonbons?

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Probably strawberry - I’ll take a 1/4 lb from the shop at the corner of Windmill Road and Donaghadee Road.

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Here’s the Roomba hack I’m going to setup with Blynk. I have a 540 Roomba which works well but has no built-in scheduling.

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Just bumping this as @Majicj were playing with Bynk this week. I forget to set the virtual pin in the Blynk app so beware - if your project doesn’t work with your lights but still connects over wifi it’s probably a virtual pin issue.

I also made my repo public. GitHub - marvage/Blynk-Neopixel-Remote: An arduino sketch that uses Blynk to control a neopixel strip over wifi.

Aside: still working on a Roomba Controller. That’s on hold until work isn’t so busy.

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Got this from @Majicj - super helpful since there are a bunch of different node versions out there.

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And…did some more investigation of bluetooth and Blynk. It’s doable but a bit unreliable (on byink anyway - for other purposes the HC-06 works great). Most people seem to use wifi with Blynk. I was exploring bluetooth because then I’d use an arduino with an HC-06 dongle.

I was thinking an arduino/hc-06 would be less likely to fry my USB port as the nodeMCU has no backwards power protection. Ah well - may have to haul out the USB isolater I bulit in one of @tomkeddie’s workshops.

All this came about because I was worrying about powering the Node/ESP with 5v through Vin and then accidentally powering it through USB also while programming it…thus cooking the port. I will just have to be careful.

edit: hc-06 is Bluetooth 2.1, Blynk does support BLE maybe that works better with teh new hotness)

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