RGB disco control

Hi. I am looking to control about 25m of rgb strip LED for around a picture rail. I have tested the strip with an rf skydance transformer and rf remote which has a rapidly changing colour sweep or disco mode. My daughter loves it so would like to replicate thus with hubitat control for normal non flashing use. Ideally would control with a remote through hubitat. Hardware suggestions please, I have currently go it with a fibaro rgb controller and I can't get it to rapid cycle.

Hi. Does anyone have experience of getting coloured LEDs to look like disco lights?

Hardware will be tough, I am not sure you are going to be completely happy with either Zigbee or Zwave, with Zwave being the worst of the two. It really wasn't meant for this type of color control, and especially not rapid changing control. Sending very rapid commands for color is likely going to swamp the mesh no matter which protocol you choose. But if I had to pick, Zigbee would be better. So I am not sure what to tell you for devices exactly, other than I don't think your desired outcome is the best match to how a home automation hub works.

The next thing to consider is how you are going to do this in software. The closest app I am aware of is either Lighting Effects (no longer developed) or Event Engine, which is a replacement, enhancement, and consolidation of many apps from bptworld. I am only linking Event Engine, but if you search for Lighting Effects you can find it.

Your other choice would be to use Rule Machine, which is very capable and probably could do what you are asking. But it would be quite a bit more complex to set up, and I think you would have to be pretty specific to what you are wanting to get advice how to build a rule.

Now forgive me for saying this, but I think that these things sound good but you will soon not use Disco or rapid color change lighting. It is fun the first few times, but the novelty wears off pretty quick. So I would just buy a cheap strip that has Disco lights built in, and not add it to my Hubitat system if that is what you are after. Or just turn on those cheap strips with a smart plug.

I would at least rethink how much you really need disco lights versus some simple color accent lighting. I have some mood/accent lighting and night lights using RGB LED strips, and I do use those all the time. But I am not blinking/flashing them constantly. They just add a little highlight in a couple areas around the house, and it is all automatic for when it happens. Red at night, and different colors at different times of day.

Hopefully someone else has tried various RGB controllers and has a more specific recommendation than I gave you.

@neonturbo thanks for the reply. The effects built into the fibaro are very close to being disco lights and seem to be activated by the "effects " parameter. The qubino rgb controller has an effect called party which would probably be a good halfway without putting too much effort in as I agree with your point that the novelty may wear off. There doesn't seem to be a named driver for the qubino, would one of the other rgb ones have the right parameters?

Zero clue there, I haven't gone through every or even that many drivers to see what they all have. But I really doubt it. You can change parameters on Zwave devices using the Basic Zwave Tool (search the forums for that) but it isn't something you would want to use all the time.

There could possibly be a community driver that might expose parameters the generic driver does not. I didn't dig around the forums to see if there was a community driver, so you might want to search for that also.