Building My Own RGB LED Light Strands

The first home automation project I embarked on was getting multicolor LEDs strung up around the two large bushes in front of the house.

The Ugly Ones From Home Depot

I had Christmas lights on them in years past, but they were ugly and low quality. I figured that addressable, multi-color LEDs would not only look nicer, but also give me more flexibility on the appearance. Maybe I could even use the lights to celebrate other non-wintery holidays.

An ugly attempt at hanging a “not-enough” quantity of cheap Home Depot Christmas lights:

Building Something Better

I did a bit of research and discovered a few products that aimed to offer what I was looking for, but they all turned out to be pretty expensive and/or locked to a crappy app or web service provided by the manufacturer.

Meanwhile, a string of basic WS2811 addressable LEDs was fairly cheap in comparison. I could get a couple thousand of them for under $500, an order of magnitude cheaper than offerings from companies like Twinkly.

Coupled with an ESP32, a decent 12V power supply, and an open-source LED controller software called WLED I was able to assemble my own completely addressable LED light strands!

I soldered all of the components down onto protoboards, enclosed them in a weatherproof one-gang boxes from Home Depot, and ran 12V lines out to several midpoints of the lengthy strand to avoid causing any voltage drop or heat issues.

Finally, we strung the lights up on the bushes and rejoyced as they looked way better than the cheap Home Depot lights from before.

I then proceeded to nerd out and define automated light routines for every holiday of the year.