[Hardware] Raspberry Pi Projects Lets Neighbors Change Christmas Lights

[Agent47]

 

 

The Raspberry Pi continues to bring people together this year, this time through a festive display of interactive Christmas lights! This maker, known as Ryder, has created a Pi-controlled system of LEDs that anyone can change using a web browser.

The major components in this project consist of a Raspberry Pi 3B+, and multiple WS2811 LED strings.
The Pi runs a custom interface on a Flask server. Users interact with the web server interface, triggering Python scripts on the Pi, which direct the LEDs to change based on the user input in real-time.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Every December, we see Raspberry Pi Christmas lighting projects appear on the web, but this year the crop has been bigger and better than ever before. If you haven’t set yours up yet, here are a few ideas, tutorials and displays to get you started.

Let’s open with the Johnson Family’s Dubstep Christmas Show for a look at what can be achieved with a Raspberry Pi and an awful lot of festive elbow grease.
We think this is the largest and most impressive Pi-based Christmas light show we’ve seen so far: let us know if you’ve seen bigger and better! You can read more about the Johnson’s setup (all controlled by a Pi) at their very detailed webpage about the project. Matt Johnson also has a behind the scenes video for you to goggle at.
Frankly, the Johnson’s effort is an outlier in its size and complexity. But there are elements of a light show like this that you can make at home and use without scaring the neighbours.
Andrew Oakley has kept his Raspberry Pi Christmas lighting setup compact: one LED matrix displayed in a window. For all that it lacks in size, its ability to play animations and the project’s low price make this a great option.
Andrew has a really thorough tutorial and build diary (we love Andrew’s write-ups) available at his website, along with the animations he’s made and all the code you need to make your own.

Lights are not just for Christmas. Here’s a giant animated menorah, built by Ben Forta and family for Hanukkah 2015. There’s a full description of how the animation was made in the video.