Play Tetris on an IKEA Wall Lamp
Turn your IKEA wall lamp into a playable Tetris machine with an ESP32 — because every LED matrix deserves to be hacked.
Time for a quick quiz — if you were to buy a wall lamp that is composed of an LED matrix, what is the first thing you should do with it? That’s correct! You should hack it so that you can play Tetris on it. And that’s exactly what Max Goldberg has done with an IKEA OBEGRÄNSAD wall lamp.
The lamp in question — which hides a 16×16 LED matrix inside — is normally used as a minimalist lighting fixture and decorative display. But thanks to Goldberg’s project, the lamp became a very unique gaming device. By pairing the display with an ESP32 microcontroller, he transformed the 16×16 LED matrix into a playable version of everybody’s favorite puzzle game: Tetris.
Because the lamp’s resolution is smaller than the traditional Tetris playfield, Goldberg adapted the gameplay to fit a 10×16 grid rather than the standard 10×20. Despite this compromise, the game retains many of the mechanics modern players expect. The implementation includes the Super Rotation System with functional wall kicks, ghost pieces that show where the current block will land, and the familiar "7-bag" randomization system to ensure a fair distribution of tetrominoes.
Gameplay also incorporates Delayed Auto Shift and Auto Repeat Rate for smooth sideways movement, along with a lock-delay system that prevents players from endlessly sliding pieces along the floor. The game progresses through levels one through fifteen, with increasing speed as more lines are cleared. While this version doesn’t keep score, the emphasis is on survival and progression rather than leaderboard chasing.
The game is controlled via a Bluetooth gamepad, such as the PlayStation 4 DualShock Controller or the PlayStation 5 DualSense Controller. Players can move pieces with the D-pad, rotate them with the face buttons, and use shoulder buttons to hold pieces. The original side button on the lamp has also been repurposed: a short press toggles sleep or reboot, while a five-second hold enters Bluetooth pairing mode.
If no controller is connected, the lamp switches into an “autoplay art mode,” where the system attempts to play Tetris by itself across the full 16×16 display. It isn’t very good at the game, but it does make for a very interesting and dynamic animation.
Do you have an IKEA OBEGRÄNSAD wall lamp? If so, what are you waiting for? Check out the GitHub repository and get hacking!