Add Inexpensive DMX Lighting and Sound to Your Escape Room or Haunted House with an ESP32

YouTuber Playful Technology loves to build gadgets and electronic systems tailored to escape rooms. He knows that a good escape room should create a cohesive experience, rather than just a series of challenges. The puzzles and their clues are part of that, but so is the rest of the storytelling atmosphere. To that end, Playful Technology’s newest video demonstrates how to use an ESP32 development board to build an inexpensive DMX lighting and sound system.

DMX (Digital Multiplex) protocols are common across the entertainment industry. If you go to a concert and they have complex pre-programmed stage lighting, they’re probably running DMX. It is popular because it is very powerful, with the ability to control and sync lights, sound effects, and physical triggers (such as for pyrotechnics or animatronics).

There are plenty of off-the-shelf DMX controllers, receivers, and complete systems available. But they tend to be expensive. This solution from Playful Technology is very affordable. $50 is enough to put together a basic system with light and sound.

The most important component for this project is an ESP32 board that runs the DMX firmware. It can automatically cycle through effects loops or respond to events. If someone solves a puzzle and opens a box, for instance, that could trigger simulated lightning and play a thunderclap.

To interface with DMX-compatible lights, you’ll need an RS485 transceiver module. To play sound effects, you’ll need an appropriate MP3 player module (Playful Technology used a DY-SV5W). To work with other low-level components, like a solenoid or sensor, you can use the ESP32’s pins directly. In the basic example shown by Playful Technology, a simple pushbutton connects to an ESP32 GPIO pin and triggers DMX scene changes.

On the coding side, you’ll use the Arduino IDE to program the ESP32 in order to take advantage of Mitch Weisbrod’s esp_dmx library. Playful Technology goes into detail on the code, so you can learn how to use the library for your own effects.

This is, of course, a fantastic choice if you’re building out an escape room. But it is also great for haunted houses, stage shows, retail displays, and much more.