An Espressif ESP32, ESPHome, and Node-RED Ensmarten These Wardrobe and Mirror Lights

Pseudonymous maker "Better-Nail-," hereafter simply "Nail," has turned added smart lighting to a wardrobe and mirror — the do-it-yourself way, with an Espressif ESP32 microcontroller, ESPHome, and Node-RED.

"I have made smart wardrobe and mirror lights using [an Espressif] ESP32, and I have used ESPHome and Node-RED for functioning," Nail writes of the DIY project. "It is web controlled, [and] can be accessed from anywhere I have tunneled to Node-RED using Cloudflare Zero Trust, and it can also be controlled using [Amazon] Alexa. I haven't added Google Home but you can also add Google Home to control this."

Smart lighting systems are ten-a-penny in home automation circles, but many off-the-shelf options come with the need to sign up for an app, use cloud services — which, in their worst implementations, can literally leave you in the dark should the cloud service suffer an outage or reach end-of-life — or require custom bulbs. Nail's approach, by contrast, uses existing lighting linked to an Espressif ESP32 microcontroller running the ESPHome firmware to add the needed smarts with local-only and remotely-accessible operation modes.

"I have also added a[n] IR [infrared] sensor which is working as [a] button," Nail notes. "As you can see in [the] mirror image there is a green LED which is [an] IR sensor. I have used it because while using [the] washbasin [my] hands will get wet and so instead of touching a button or something I used it and now you just have to touch the wall 1-2cm below the sensor and [an] ON/OFF command will be triggered."

More information is available in Nail's Reddit thread.