For most people, a flashlight is just something you keep in a drawer in the kitchen in case the power goes out. There’s even a good chance your “flashlight” is just an application on your phone at this point. But as we’ve seen many times before from mechanical keyboards to Power Wheels, hardcore niche communities […]
As near as we can tell, the popular WS2812 individually addressable RGB LED was released to the world sometime around the last half of 2013. This wasn’t long ago, or maybe it was an eternity; the ESP8266, the WiFi microcontroller we all know and love was only released a year or so later. If you […]
Inspiration runs on its own schedule: great ideas don’t always arrive in a timely manner. Such was the case with [Daren Schwenke]’s notion for creating a 3D-printed blooming rose for his valentine, a plan which came about on February 13. Inspired by [Jiří Praus]’s animated wireframe tulip, [Daren] figured he could make a rose from […]
Over the last few years, LED candles have become increasingly common; and for good reason. From a distance a decent LED candle is a pretty convincing facsimile for the real thing, providing a low flickering glow without that annoying risk of burning your house down. But there’s something to be said for the experience of […]
If you’ve ever searched Mouser or Digikey for LEDs parametrically, you won’t find just one red in your LEDs. You won’t find one green. There is quite literally an entire rainbow of colors of LEDs, and this rainbow goes into infrared and ultraviolet. You can search LEDs by frequency, and an RGEB LED is right […]
Like most pieces of technology, word clocks seem to be getting better and better every year. As hackers get their hands on better microcontrollers and more capable LED controllers, these builds not only look more polished, but get improved features and functions. Luckily for us, the rise of these advanced modular components means they’re getting […]
As a lover of lava lamps, [Julian Butler] knew when he saw a coworker’s modern LED incarnation of the classic piece of illuminated decor that he had to have one for himself. The only problem was that the Kickstarter for it had long since ended, and they were no longer available. So he did what […]
While we often think we are clever designers, living things often meet or beat the best human designs. It is easy to forget that nature even has living lightbulbs, among them the firefly. Researchers from Penn State decided to compare how fireflies create light and found that they deal with a problem similar to LEDs. […]
According to [makeTVee], his latest project started out as an experiment to see how well the LED matrix techniques he’s worked with in the past would translate to a cylindrical form factor. We’re going to go ahead and say that not only was the test a success, but that the concept definitely holds promise for […]
If you had asked us yesterday what peak nightlight technology looked like, we might have said one of those LED panels that you stick in the outlet. At least it beats one of those little wimpy light bulbs behind the seashell, anyway. But after looking at a detailed teardown of the “Glow Light” from Casper, […]