I'm getting ready to move into a new house from the mid

>>1201030
>So far I know I need 5050 RGB LEDs which are the ones that have the different colors.
Yeah you're not going to get far with just these. Fist of all, lighting is not what they're meant for. To properly light a house, you need diodes with an actual lumen rating to get anywhere further than simply breaking the perfect dark. Secondly, microcontrollers have only so many output pins. To drive an RGB LED you need three microcontroller pinouts. Even if you wanted to drive all LEDs with the same distribution of color, you'd still be restricted by the amperage rating. This is why we use dedicated RGB LED drivers. You'll need these, lots of them. For lighting an entire house with 5050's, you'd need about a hundred thousand LED bulbs, corresponding to at least 500 LED drivers of decent output. If soldering is like a walk in the park for you, you'd spend about 3 years in the fumes.

>>1201030
change your bulbs with led ones
highly efficient and nearly no heat
>rgbleds
they are for kids...

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>>1201030

So for ambient lighting RBGs are great. For just every day lighting and work space lighting you will want either daylight or clear white bulbs (either LED or CFL).

5050s are only able to be set to one color for the entire strip, and controlling them with something like Alexa probably won't be possible. If you get WS2112Bs you can probably rig it to something like Alexa maybe using RPi or Arduino as a controlling medium.

t. light autist

Another thing is the issue of time. I look up tutorials for this, and it seems like there are different ways to go about doing it. Unsure if they're outdated or x way is truly the best way to do it.

One suggested having a Raspberry Pi set up to connect like a server between the lights and Alexa or something

Another required an IR box connected to something and you needed to have a spare Android device to connect that IR device to to have it communicate with this other app that would proceed to connect to the Alexa app.

https://youtu.be/hcJM9HHbK1k This seemed pretty easy. This one at least expresses phrases. Like have a saved color and call it "beach" so when you say "beach" to Alexa, it goes to that specific tan color light set up.

To just have "Turn off Red" and "Turn on Blue" is bland.

I dont think that you will be able to get the led strips to emit enough light to light up a room, maybe phillips hue is something to consider. Quite expensive, yes but its simple and you can controll everything quite easily.

>>1201041
I'm not trying to do a whole house, I want to do one room to see how easy/stupid it is. The room in particular is probably 14x15 square ft if that.

>>1201046
I have considered those for my main lighting; LED strips for ambiance. Side question though: do those fucking things ever go on sale? Like a Black Friday/50% off kinda thing, or do LED/Hue bulbs retain their ridiculous price point forever?

>>1201051
I'm not a stranger to RPi and I'd be willing to do so if the documentation is there for my needs. I just want to have multiple strips connected to a central hub and not have a shitton of wires everywhere. I want it to look fancy and be able to control it with Alexa with fun phrases like "I feel like a fag" and it automatically turns the room pink.

>>1201051
>>1201061
Btw... is there a good website that explains how to have an RPi control LEDs via Alexa?

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>>1201061
>>1201064

Not that I know of. I'm not sure how Alexa works but you will probably need to be able to capture the data Alexa sends out through the RPi or be able to teach Alexa how to output a certain signal that the RPi can recognize.

>>1201064
if it is just about the voice recognition I bet there are voice recognition programs that work on rpi

>>1201030
I think you're going to want some with white phosphor instead of exactly three specific wavelengths?

>>1201051
5050s are only able to be set to one color for the entire strip
But they're still able to change into multiple colors, right? I don't need the strips to have all the colors of the rainbow simultaneously or anything. Just the ability to set mood lighting with funny Alexa titles.

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>>1201121
Yes, you can still do an amazing assortment of colors, but the entire strip.

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my setup. Nothing fancy. about 15m of those warm 3xxx (?) strip attach to a control box. I use my phone's bluetooth to control brightness. Also a rotary encoder to fade it on/off with hand. Really bright. I keep it at 20percent brightness most of the time. let me know if you have specific questions.

>>1201096
Your eyes can't tell the difference. We only have receptors for three wavelengths and perceive white when they're all hit at once.

>>1201320
>We only have receptors for three wavelengths
Wrong. We have receptors to translate [i]all[/i] wavelengths of light into three color distinctions. If we had an LED creating yellow wavelength (590nm) light, we'd still see it, correct? However our brain translates the wavelength/color into a mix of red/green/blue so we can properly "read" it.

>>1201320
You've obviously never done any sort of color work then.

things look different under the 'white' setting of an RGB light than an incandescent or florescent bulb.

Yes your eyes only pick up Red Green and Blue. But the red picks up a very broad spectrum of red, same with green and blue. RGB diodes only put out one frequency of red, one frequency of green and one frequency of blue.

This is exactly why products like the Hue have dedicated white light LED's inside them instead of relying on just the RGB ones.

>>1201330
>>1201332
Your computer monitor is right now showing you white by turning on red green and blue lights of very discrete narrow bandwidths. Does that white light look any different from the light coming off an LED bulb that fills the entire spectrum?

Hue has dedicated white LEDs because people want a mostly white light source with slight tints to it. It's more economical to have high power white LEDs combined with lower power R, G, B for tint.

>>1201339
You're talking about ADDITIVE lighting.

I'm talking about SUBTRACTIVE lighting.

The monitor outputs three distinct wavelengths in varying intensities to trick the eye into thinking the full spectrum is present.


In illumination by RGB leds the three specific wavelengths leave the diode and then either bounce off of, or absorbed by, an object.

All sorts of objects will reflect or absorb that very specific wavelength of red, green or blue and appear different when compared to full spectrum light hitting it.

Go outside with a panton color chart in the middle of the night and stand under a low pressure sodium street light. One of the ones that's orange colored. various shades of green look black, blues look weird,and most reds are relatively easily distinguished.

>>1201330
But I mean is that really a necessary clarification?
Even monochromatic sources have distributions. At what point does a receptor become shit enough that you can say it detects all wavelengths?
Unless you can ask god or whomever what his intentions were when he designed it all.
Actually just ignore this post I guess its rambling nonsense

>>1201339
>>1201345
Most desktop monitors have white phosphor LEDs behind the LCD.

Your phone may be just three wavelengths. That's good for forming an image, but not for illuminating other stuff.

>>1201051
May I ask you what kind of LED would be great for a small reading lamp?

>>1201345
what the fuck is subtractive lighting? How does a light take light away?

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>>1202091
High output and bright white will probably be hard on the eyes. 5050 and WS2812Bs RGBs wouldn't have a good spectrum either. This would be a tough DIY project because there are way better premade LED reading lamps. If you want to DIY and make your own look for natural white 5050s or WS2812Bs. I do believe the make both.

>>1201030
>I want to make the change to an all-LED strip setup
Oh god, don't, unless you want the color of every fucking object in the room to look wrong.

>>1202095
It's a rarely used and difficult lighting technique that tricks the eye into thinking a certain color is present by neutralizing/balancing the other colors so the chosen color stands out. It requires very precise lighting control and some knowledge of how the light receptors in a human eye work. It's not truly about subtracting light but that's it's name anyway.

I'm not sure if that's what anon was talking about though because desu it didn't make a lot of sense.

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Rope lights are dope OP, highlt recomend a set. I got mine hanged loosely, eventually they will go into a bar, but makes for good mood light.

Where can i get somw of the strip led's that are decent quality?
RGB, Fade, pick what color. That stuff.

Anyone have any experience in working with pixelpusher and creating a LED video wall? I've seen a lot of different diy tutorials but the pixelpusher & LED lab software seems like the best method.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-an-interactive-iPad-controlled-LED-Wall/ -- this particular project is quite badass.

They're a lot of prefab LED curtain type options as well for something more portable. A lot coming from china. Not as sure as components necessary for that but do realize china best source for cheap bulk led.

>>1201310
>>1203446
Do it right or don't do it at all. these both look like ass.