In our master bedroom we have a ceiling with a recessed ledge around the perimeter (see below). We've had a warm white rope light in there forever, but I'd like to do something with color LED strips. I was thinking just a single color all around the room, and maybe the ability to fade or color-cycle...basic stuff. But when I mentioned this to the missus, she asked "Do you think you can make it look like the Northern Lights?"
So I'm looking for advice. What are the best options for simple non-addressable RGB lights that are HE friendly? And second, what about "effects?" Are there any commercially available products that are HE compatible? I'm thinking something like Twinkly or NanoLeaf, but didn't see anything that quite looks "right" for my application. An honestly, I'm not sure I could justify the cost.
The DIY route for the scenes seems out of reach also. I'm sure I could build microcontroller and strip setup, but I doubt I could program anything that would be even remotely aesthetically pleasing. But I may be open to DIY for the basic one-color-at-a-time setup, if it would be HE controllable and the cost justified it.
If you are interested in the DIY route look up WLED. It can be run on ESP8266 and ESP32s and has tons of effects built in and has tons of custom options. It runs completely local too and has a hubitat community driver as well.
If you do not want individually controlled LEDs you could use something like a Zooz ZEN31 LED strip controller. It has a number of built in modes for different effects.
Looking over mine though... Not sure if they would work for you. The listed effects are:
Fireplace
Storm
Deep Fade
Light Fade
Police
If you can find them, Inovelli has a LED strips with a controller that has a huge number of effects that were pretty well done.
Highly recommend this WLED controller for an out-of-box ready to go solution. It has a relay so the LEDs don't use power when they are off, ESP32 so plenty of horsepower for WLED and optionally you can use the microphone for reactive effects and even an IR receiver included.
If you are doing something bigger and more complex then look at the QuinLED boards as the swiss-army knife of solutions.
I have played around with PixelBlaze, Dig Uno and a few other controllers.
I would point you towards the Dig Uno or Dig Quad. They are preflashed with WLED and have some great youtube channels dedicated to them.
Pixelblaze is good but I found the creation of patterns to be a bit time consuming (remember the caveat of "I found", you may not find it difficult). i still have two or three running and use the library of patterns for those.
The Dig uno works well and is very flexible, with the Pixelblaze , if you run 12 or 24 vdc lights then you need to have a 5vdc regulator, where with Dig Uno you can run 5, 12, or 24 vdc and the board does the 5vdc step down (if required for the data line).
Just guessing but thinking your bedroom is of a good size you may need a few metres of leds and I would run 12 or 24 volts to reduce the current required and reduce the amount of power injection points.
To expand on @the-leafs comments above, I have also used a couple Dig devices, one Uno and one Quad. Both have worked flawlessly and I have another Dig Uno in the box ready to be installed next week. Another thing, they have options for how you want to connect them to your internet. The standard WIFI and antenna, a version with an external antenna, and a version with an ethernet port. They also come pre-fused for some added protection.
I like the idea of using 24v LEDs and not having to use a separate 5v power supply. It looks like both the Athom and Dig devices will do this. Unfortunately it looks like the Dig devices are out of stock unless someone knows a source with stock on hand...
Well that will make it a bit difficult to say the least.
as an alternative, and I am awaiting the arrival of my two Sonoff Basics to try this out, watch this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOW17tnIHeM
It means you will still need a separate PS and a couple extra wire runs inside a project box but this will turn off the LED's PS completely so that you dont have that constant current draw. (I would there is a minor one with the Sonoff Basic but not as much as the entire strip would still draw. (from what I understand).
"Just curious, why go this route as opposed to the athom?"
I was not aware of the athom (it appears that shipping to the Great White North is not available), and secondly, I like playing in my workshop.
I know that the Sonoff device works with Hubitat and I also know that WLED works so thus my choice. If I am unhappy I have a Sonoff Basic I can repurpose for use in my automation so its a win if it fails.
Whatever your choice have fun with it.
Good luck.
edit
I just checked and I paid $7 Canuck bucks for the Sonoff, less than the Athom.
