I’m looking for an easy and proofed way to wireless control a led setup.
I could live with an interrupted led updating during the transmission. It would be only stuff like a program and parameter numbers, speed, brightness - basic things.
It should not eat much computing power / fps, to “wait” or “look” for input.
I would prefer to stick with the teensy as platform.
P.S. And I’m interested in these smartphone solutions, too. What would be the google term to find existing solutions? Which transmitting method do they use? IR, Bluetooth, Wifi, something else?
Avoid IR for now unless you’ve already moved everything to APA102’s
I’m a fan of bluetooth LE at the moment, none of the setup bullshit of Wifi. I’ve used both https://www.adafruit.com/products/1697 and the hardware underlying the rfduino for this.
With wifi you have the option of using TouchOSC as a controller on smartphone/tablet devices, at the expense of a bit more complexity in connection setup. Also, I have yet to find a wifi solution that doesn’t make me want to set fire to things. (N.B. I haven’t yet played with the TI CC3300 based setups).
I used to use this: https://www.adafruit.com/products/1588
I could program my Arduino Mega over the air and have a serial port to control parameters within my sketch. Very easy to setup and use out of the box. I have not used it on the Teensy, nor is it able to reprogram it.
I recently had to ask @Ashley_M_Kirchner_No some questions about the nRF24l01. He did some cool projects where he used them to sync his animations over multiple controllers. Because I got them cheap, they were crap. One unit would only receive if I touch the crystal on the board, SMH. Stay away, even though the price point is cheap!
Xbee’s (SERIES 2) have been my go to. I recently started using them in clusters to control each other. In unicast mode, they are very slow in protocol, SO to get around it, each xbee only communicates to one other in the network. 1-> 2, 2->3, 3->4, and so on. This way the data stream is much faster and you trigger animations almost immediate across multiple LED remotes.
I’m considering the nRF24l01 myself. However didn’t tried them yet and yes they were cheap. However needing to hold the crystal seems to say more about the PCB manufacturer that the chip itself.
I did once an installation with 2 Arduino’s, but that was because I didn’t wanted to interrupt the animation. I used Pachube (cosm, and now it changed again it’s name) so I could modify parameters over the web In combination with an ethernetboard.
I experimented with the Roving (now microchip) WiFly as well, but that one has some bugs and they don’t fix them soon enough.
I’m looking forward to RFDuino support, just for remote control. Price technical this is quite interesting. It also has GZLL which is a communication layer for devices to communicate with eachother (up to 7).
Thank you all for the suggestions so far! Do I get this right: When I use one of these Bluetooth Serial Link devices I would need another Arduino/computer as a control unit? Or are there possibilities to control them with a smartphone?
Cool. How do I write the app for the smartphone? Or - to be precise - in which language? I have to admit that I still use (and am happy with) my beloved old Nokia phone, so I have no idea, where to start to write an application for an android system.
I’m looking at Phonegap right know, with that you can write cross-platform app’s (with html, javascript and css). There is already RFDuino and Bluetooth 4.0 (LE) support. Pay attention you need a recent smartphone for that. Most (older then one year) support only 2.1.
I’ve used IR on Teensy v3.1 with a 32x32 matrix and a APA102 strip. I have been very happy with the results. It requires very little effort and there is no setup hassle. I think I’ll be ordering and investigating the Bluefruit LE next.
Ok @Jason_Coon , but with the SmartMatrix and the APAs you luckily don’t have the hassle with the slow led communication. Here in Europe it is right now impossible, to find a reliable source for “new” led hardware. Or to predict how the german customs reacts to stuff they’ve never seen before… Anyway, I will give IR a try, too - just for the peace of my mind.
I live in Holland (actually 5km from the german border), but I had a APA102 strip within 3 weeks: http://www.ebay.com/itm/351191941509 Don’t know if Dutch customs are faster then the german ones?
I think every customs is more flexible than the german one… but it is just a guess. The most of my orders made it to me from other continents. But unfortunately not all - so it is hard for me to decide to buy a large quantity of leds from China. Btw: Are you coming to the dutch Decom, @Kasper_Kamperman ?
I used some cheap bluetooth modules with my teensy 3.0 and it worked fantastic. I based my android app off of the Funkbox code. it was easy enough to modify for my own doings.
I have used the Adafruit Bluefruit and DFRobot bluetooth modules with great success. My sketch is based on the Funkboxing code which includes BT commands… it wasn’t that hard to modify (and I know next to nothing about coding). I am using an Android Nexus 7 to control my projects (since iPhone only works with BTLE – I’m planning to play with that soon).
I also downloaded and modified the Funkboxing Android App to control my projects – my LED mermaid tail and my Isis wings both run on the same framework and can be controlled via the same app, though not at the same time. In the app I can change modes and I also have sliders for changing hue, delay, saturation and brightness. It’s pretty cool.
Anyway, I will give IR a try, too - just for the peace of my mind.