Tag Archives: xiaomi

Christmas tree – Arduino Leds

Video: https://youtu.be/7wwv_Az_uWw

Actually this is a project which I started last year and was not able to finish it then.

Using WS2811 led lights (not strips) I thought about making a Christmas tree light being able to control every single led using an Arduino. This is actually very simple. For about 100 lights, I used a 10A power source just to be sure. Also next year I might add another 50 lights to it.

The best part about it is the programming. I found a lot of programs online. Took the nicest one, combined and tweaked them, and here is the result…

Home automation with Xiaomi, Raspberry, NodeMCU and Sonoff+Tasmota

This is gonna be a long post and will be edited from time to time.

So I have this Xiaomi Home Automation system which served me well in the past, and still does. But in time I built more stuff myself which I would like to integrate into one system.

I started off with Home Assistant even though other systems still have potential (OpenHAB, etc). This is an open source home automation system to work with Raspberry Pi 3.

A nice feature of Home Assistant is the use of Snips.ai, a voice recognition addon similar to Assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant but which works completely offline and can control your devices.

Another big advantage of Home Assistant is that most of the Xiaomi components I have can be controlled using it. And on top of this I can use Sonoff modules (which are very cheap and can connect via Wifi and control any electronics in the house)  with Tasmota firmware which gives them MQTT capabilities and lets me integrate them in Home Assistant.

Still a lot to go and to configure until the final system is ready, but that’s the fun …

Yeelight Strip Hacking

Everyone who knows me a little bit, knows how crazy I am about Xiaomi products. No other company I know offers such a wide spectrum of products, so good quality of components used to build theese products, and such great prices.

I recently bought a Yeelight LED strip to integrate in my Xiaomi Smart Home system. It is a high quality product, with many features. The only downside is the length of 2m. It is not bright enough for the whole living room. So I decided to do a little experiment: cut out the led strip and the power source, and solder a 5m strip and a more powerful power source.

Since I love theese products so much, this was very painful 🙂 but I did it anyway. The results were positive. I successfully replaced the LEDs with a 5m long 5050 RGB LED strip and a 5A power source. Everything still works with the app and the scenes. The only downside on this solution was that the colors were not exactly the same as I expected. Obviously the 5m strip was not the same quality as the ones from Yeelight. I will need to find some better ones.

Or just wait for the new Yeelight LED strip which will be 10m long I hear.