Yule Love This Raspberry Pi-Powered Light Show
The Gustavsson family's dazzling Raspberry Pi-powered 25,000-light Christmas show is back again to make the season bright!
It’s that most jolly time of year once more! That means we can dust off the storage bins in our garages and apply our hacking skills to the art of exterior illumination. As is always the case with Christmas light shows, the bigger the better. Synchronized light shows, inflatable decorations, music — anything and everything that third mortgage you had to take out on your house can buy will totally still seem worth it on January 1st. Now is the time to build the biggest, most merry light show your neighborhood has ever seen — not that it is a competition (it definitely is though).
The Gustavsson family really knows how to make the hap-hap-happiest time of year just a little bit brighter. They have an annual tradition of lighting up their home so bright that the Mars rovers have been known to get an extra boost of energy from their solar panels every December. Not only is their home covered in enough addressable RGB LEDs to cause the local power plant to fret, but they have also got all manner of holiday-themed decorations like trees and stars lighting up the night.
These lights don’t just simply light up, they are programmed to perform synchronized shows set to music. Controlling many thousands of lights spread over an entire home and lawn is a complex task, so the Gustavsson family set up a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B to manage the action. This single-board computer works in conjunction with Falcon pixel controllers to light up over 25,000 individual lights. The Falcon Player software package — designed for Raspberry Pis — was used to assist with the task of programming the show.
The family’s neighbors (I believe their names are Todd and Margo) might not find the light show quite so appealing as people driving by for a look, but the Gustavssons did make an effort to keep the peace. There are no speakers to belt out the music for the light shows (over and over and over again). Instead, they broadcast the music over an FM radio frequency, so that people can tune into the show in their vehicles.
What kind of light show have you created this year? Anything over-the-top or unusual? Let us know about it!