LEDswarm

ESP8266/ESP32 based mesh to drive and synchronize a swarm of mobile LEDs

VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uttsf_RPKiI

In the video the nodes are using the awesome M5Stack Atom Matrix ESP32 dev kit: https://m5stack.com/collections/m5-atom/products/atom-matrix-esp32-development-kit

Using these awesome libraries:

• painlessMesh: https://gitlab.com/painlessMesh
• FastLED: https://github.com/FastLED/FastLED
• TaskScheduler: https://github.com/arkhipenko/TaskScheduler
• ArduinoTapTempo: https://github.com/dxinteractive/ArduinoTapTempo

Please note the official ArduinoTapTempo has a bug that crashes ESP32 I've updated platformio.ini with a fork that has a fix

Features

• No central node needed
• Automatic joining of wifi mesh
• Mesh leader election
• Automatic synchronisation of pattern, pattern timing and BPM (for bpm based patterns).
• Each node will work standalone when out of range of the rest (it will become it's own leader)
• On the Atom Matrix 5x5 rgb display the heart animation will pulse slowly (with a blue center) when alone (out of range) and will pulse quickly when together in a mesh!

Exact synchronisation of patterns and timing is done by FastLED using the clock from the mesh instead of an internal timer:

uint32_t get_millisecond_timer() {
   return mesh.getNodeTime()/1000 ;
}

Usage

• Make a new src/headers/.h file with your preferences (see other files for examples)
• Edit platformio.ini with your board details and point to the header file (see other examples)
• Compile & upload

TODO (Wish) list

• Multi-node sequential patterns: nodes handoff patterns to each other in sequence
• Control via an app or other interface
• UI/UX: button to control BPM/brightness - or long/short press controls