Add Some Pizzazz to Your Property with ESP32-Powered Post Lights
These WiFi-controlled octagonal lights use an interesting diffusion technique.
After having his landscaping redone, hacker ‘p3nguin’ was left with a half-dozen brick posts in the front of the house. While they looked OK by themselves, they really needed some sort of lighting on top to set them off. Though p3nguin could have spent $1,500 or so on something that was only OK, he decided instead to build something custom that would be cheaper and much cooler.
What he came up with was a series of six octagonal post tops, each containing 100 WS2812B addressable LEDS and an ESP32-DevKitC board. This allows for wireless coordination and control of the lights, which is taken care of by a WLED web server. A smartphone app provides user interface.
Each lighting setup runs off of 12V “landscape” power, using a step-down transformer to produce the 5V needed to operate the LEDs. The fixtures' housings are made with an octagonal pattern of clear, translucent, and smoky acrylic, diffusing light in an interesting manner.
The fixtures are configured to subtly shine with either a warm white light, or a palette reflecting the season, and when a holiday comes along, they’re programmed to shine in accordance with the occasion. At some point p3nguin even plans to add capacitance touch to one of the pillars to let kids — or adults — change things up as desired.
Be sure to check them out in action in the videos below!