Maker hacks his own Arduino-compatible, Philips Hue-like bulbs with LYT and Souliss.
Looking to control the multi-colored lights in your home? Sure, you could always go out and buy your own set of Philips Hue bulbs. Or, you can do what a Dario Di Maio has done and build your own that plugs into a standard light socket. As the Maker points out, while smart LEDs have become quite common today, none have been Arduino-compatible.
For this project, the Maker used the Authometion LYT — an ATmega88PA powered RGBW LED bulb with an Arduino shield as a gateway, which enabled him to freely create his own custom behaviors and code. Both the Arduino and shield run the Souliss framework, while the lights are controlled through the Souliss App.
The shield is equipped with two radio modules, an ESP8266 Wi-Fi SoC that connects the Arduino with the home router and a PL1167 2.4 GHz transceiver wired to the Atmel MCU to control the bulbs. (Di Maio recommends either the Uno and Leonardo.)
Meanwhile, the ESP8266 and the Arduino are linked via USART. According to Di Maio, you can download the necessary libraries and examples from the Authometion store. These allow you to bridge command over Wi-Fi to the USART and then to the PL1167.
“We will run two instances of Souliss, one on the ESP8266 and the other on the Arduino board, this because Souliss embedded the communication between different nodes and this let us skip the writing of a custom code to link these two devices,” Di Maio writes.
The bulb itself is a 9W RGBW LED, which generally should fit in most lamps with an E27 plug. The Maker provides an elaborate breakdown of his project along with the necessary code on his page here.
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