Hello All!!!
I have been looking at a lot of posts about LED strips and still confused on which strips are the easiest to install and get working with HASSIO. I am not really interested in the sodding and stuff so hopefully you can share which ones worked for you and possible provide the amazon link to the product.
Thanks in advance!
What this project. It is really easy to setup and integrate. just take a 5v ws2812b strip and attach it to an ESP32 or ESP8266 with 3 wires and lets go!
It has auto discovery by home assistant… plug and play baby!
I hooked it up in less than 30 minutes!
I have a Fibabro zwave RGBW controller. It worked well for two + years until the other day I was messing around in the cabinet where I have it and think I shorted it. I also have one of these:
That one works just as well and works with the influx LED integration.
I also have a zwave led controller but function is very limited and I prefer having a led strip with single programmable LEDs for light effects and the whole package of esp and strip is not much more expensive than a controller which only handles colors
Yea I was looking at those today, the ones with the individual addressable led’s. For my current application it wouldn’t do much for me. Mine live in a tray ceiling in my theater and constant color changing is distracting. Currently my program is to light up blue when motion is detected, then when my equipment in powered up they turn to red.
That might be overkill bit you can also use it with Hyperion …means your light strip will refelct colors of the current picture on your TV
Before you consider HASSIO you need to consider the LEDs and what you want to use them for. There are many different types and the requirements for wiring them make many of them inappropriate for some purposes.
WS2812(B) LEDs offer the highest level of granularity in control, with individual LED RGB colour and a fairly high refresh. However as they are 5V the current requirements to run any more than a meter or two of them runs into serious electrical concerns very quickly.
WS2811 LEDs provide the same RGB control, but these strips can come in 12V form, effectively allowing you to have strips twice (or more) in length before you run into DC supply problems. The LEDs are just in groups of 3 instead of individual.
5050 (and similar) 12V RGB strips allow only colour change across all LEDs, but these also suffer from DC supply issues and most controllers only support 1 or 2 meters per controller.
I also realise there are installations which push the limits on these, but as there are fire hazards involved I wouldn’t recommend doing so.
Mains power LEDs which have RGB controllers are probably better for longer runs, but I am unfamiliar with these. You can buy warm white 240V strips on Amazon that are 17 meters long, but they have no RGB control.
So start by thinking how fine granularity control you need and how long/how manys strips you need, then pick LEDs that are suitable, check you can meet their power demands.
As an example…
WS2812Bs at 144 LEDs per meter, the maximum current (according to the datasheet) is around 8A per meter. They never really pull this and I haven’t seen them go over around 3.5A, but YMMV.
If you wanted to put 3 meters of these up a stair case, for example, it would consume a theoretical 24 Amps which is NOT possible, even if powered at both ends. The more likely figure of 15Amps is still too much for a single strip to handle, so you need to power them at multiple points and run heavy gauge DC power cable along side them. You also need a large DC brick, like a 20Amp Mean Well supply and a suitable location to keep it.
Like mentioned in the post above, you will need power at multiple point on your strip. Mine works with a bit more than 2 meters and external 5v amplifier. But there shouldn’t be a problem to run 15 meters with multiple points of power on your strip.
Indeed, but do check their amperage per meter it varies a lot between LED strips. Then consider if you are using a single power supply that the cable needs to be rated for that full current. If you are powering at multiple points you still need the first bit of wire to take the full current and can skimp on the next runs. Best advice if you don’t feel comfortable is to buy from a local brand which is rated for the local electrical standards and comes with proper instructions about wiring, max strip length etc. The ones on EBay from China most often do not come with this or the figures they do give you are dubious.
They are fine to play around with “on the bench” as electronics people say, but installing them into your house is a different matter.
The extreme example of 24 amps would require a minimum of 15 guage wire, 2mm sqr cross section. IF the wire is in open air and thus cooled, it will need to be heavier again if you want to run it through a conduit. I’d be considering 14 or 12 gauge wire for a permanent installation. Consider the really thick leads you see on a kettle which is only 13 amps (in the UK). Look at the wire going to your cooker (in the UK) this is installed for a 30 Amp circuit and that wire is a beast.
A common miss-conception is that low voltage lighting can be run on super thin cables. This is actually the opposite. For a given amount of light, the lower the voltage the thicker the wire. You can run 50,000 volts does a bit of wire the thickness of a hair, look at the magnet wire on tesla coils for example. Its the current that causes heat in the wire. The thinner the wire the higher the resistance the higher the heat. Even though you might consider 5V harmless, you can realistically put your tongue on the wires and it will not even hurt (much), but running 24 Amps of 5V DC power down a thin bit of bell or alarm wire WILL start a fire.
50 watts of light at 240V is less than a quarter of an amp.
50 watts of light at 5V is 10 amps.
I don’t intend to scare monger, but installed incorrectly with inappropriate power wires these LED strips can be dangerous. Installed correctly with the correct wire and powering points and they are lovely, reliable, cheap to run and environmentally friendly.
Can you guys make some suggestion on what led strip to get and where you got it from, URL would be great. Also, I know there are different reasons for using certain strips, just curious as to what you purchased and used.
Thanks really helpful!
Can this one be integrated?
Magic Home Led strip
Hey,
Know this is an old thread, but quick question regarding the LEDENET Smart WiFi Controller. Does it react fairly fast when turning on and off?
I’ve been using these for quite some time and yeah they do the job, but I find the response quite slow. Sometimes it take several seconds before it reacts. I got a few and it seems to be the same on all of them.
Mine, in the 3rd from the top reply, is instant, even using the lifx integration. I believe I saw somewhere online where they flashed the one you have pictured with esphome.
Also consider Shelly:
Have them, flashed ESPHome on them. Communication via HA-API In this combination they are pretty fast.