I’m looking for a LED lightstrip that has both of these:
It should also be quite good quality.
So anyway, both Philips and Lifx are out of the games since non of them are powered by USB. What more options do we have? I have searched around on Amazon but can’t find anything that says that it integrates with Home Assistant.
Does anyone have a recommendation?
This USB ledstrip works fine with HA, it is a Zigbee device though -> https://zigbee.blakadder.com/Gledopto_GL-MC-001.html.
Depending on the number of leds on the strips and the amps your USB port on the TV can produce you can also have a look at the W2812 leds on 5V and use them with WLED -> https://www.aliexpress.com/i/33024623425.html.
I don’t ha e Zigbee so that’s not an option. But the WS2812B looks very interesting but I’m a bit worried about the installation. Seems like it’s not a kit. I need to but the power adapter separatly? And do I ha e to solder things? If so, that’s way too much work for what I’m looking for.
I dont know how your going to power any significant amount of LED’s with USB power. Each LED on a WS2812 needs about 50mA at full brightness… I think TV usb’s put out maybe 900mA? So thats ~20 LED’s that you could potentially power.
Are you looking to do ambient lighting around the TV? I got a 65" TV. I got 250 LED’s around my 65". Drawing 16A or so. Maybe less.
Many USB LED strips come with IR remotes. If this is the case you can use a Broadlink device to control them. If IR is all you need, a RM4 mini will do it; if you need RF as well you’ll need a RM4 Pro.
Tip: you only need the Broadlink app to add the device to your network - after that use the HA integration to learn the codes.
But there are many lightstrips on the market powered by USB. And that lights all the sides on the TV so. I don’t know how they do it but. Here is just one example:
I’m not looking for lightning that reflects the colors on the display.
I don’t wanna add another protocol to my Raspberry PI. It has to work with Wifi or Z-wave.
My latest thought is to just go the easy way and buy Yeelight instead even though it’s not USB powered. But it’s a trusted brand (Aurora) and seems to have a seamless and good integration with Home Assistant. But I really wish it was in black PCB.
Interesting. Wonder how bright they can get with only USB power.
I bet not at all…
500 mAh is the limit on USB without handshake. Meaning devices that can’t say how much current they can take will get 500 mAh.
It could have been changed, but I doubt it.
If you use a 5 volt relay to open/close the mains in a cable then you could use any lightstrip you want.
Or if the TV is smart and you only want to turn on/off with the TV then look for the TV on/off and mirror that to your lightstip.
If it’s not smart then add something that detects the TV’s state. Could be a energy metering smart plug or a ESP8266.
And that image from Amazon. Just don’t expect that kind of brightness from a USB powered strip. Especially not if it’s plugged in to the TV.
I bought Lifx Z. Not in mood for problems.
I returned all my z’s and went with wled instead. Any advanced color or chase sequences are a PIA to call from HA. Your kinda tied to there web api unless you create your own lifx server. There is not an integration for that.
Okay but wled is too much of a project for me right now.
I use Inovellui strips for under my kitchen cabinets. Have 45 pre-programmed effects. Works with HA. Z wave.
https://inovelli.com/red-series-smart-led-strip/?locale=en
Aha I may understand what you mean now. I don’t really understand how it works. Am I dependent by their cloud? I wanted to create a scene with animation but that didn’t work. When I search online then people say it’s because the animations are not on the firmware it’s controlled by the device or something. I still don’t understand why I can’t have it in a scene though. I would be fine if it only works when I’m home.
However, this is where it SHOULD be better controlling it through Home Assistant, right? My raspberry pi is always home.
And in fact there is an option for effect in HA but only two effects. Why? And nothing happens when I choose pulse or stop.
I didn’t even get that far as it was very convoluted. Iirc all commands have to be first translated to hexadecimal to send commands directly to the strip. I resigned to just using the app to set animations and such. However sometimes if I left or my phone went off my network, the animations would stop. I think you have to leave the app running in the background to.
Your only real option, I believe, is that deflick link I posted. Strips have been out for years and no one has bothered to make an intergration for them. You could make a feature request but I think I had saw one.
There is a lifx community on reddit he’s active on. He’s a lifx employee but this is his personal project. It shouldn’t be too hard to setup but it sure won’t be simple. If you want to get it setup I suggest digging around reddit.
I use this LED:
https://aliexpress.ru/item/1857949964.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.7ddb33ed9IJJMx
Powered by USB, works with HA through WiFi, no problem for a 2 years)
