Absolutely... and a good suggestion for anyone that doesn't want even the small screw holes. I tried a small screw in an inconspicuous location and felt it was acceptable in my case. And I did like the added ability to easily remove a section of the rail from the clips in the event that I needed to make a repair (fortunately hasn't happened yet). But you could absolutely use command strips or even other double-sided tape as long is it wouldn't mar the finish upon removal. Thanks for watching and passing on the suggestion!
omg i just imagined this thing detecting motion in the middle of the night when no one seems to be there, slowly walking down ..... got goosebumps now and dont want this anymore xD
Thanks! While it may seem a bit 'over the top', they actually are nice when we turn the main lights off to watch TV, as they provide plenty of light to go up and down the stairs without turning on the overhead lights. They aren't for everybody... but we like them! Thanks for watching... and taking the time to leave a comment.
That is an interesting idea, and it could be adapted from the stairs fairly easily. Of course, everything would have to be weatherproofed, but I could even see combining it with a distance sensor (like I did in my parking assistant vid) and have the lights indicate when the car is parked in the desired position. Thanks for the idea... might be worth investigating at some point.
Sir you are my hero. I’ve been wanting to do something like this for years. Thanks for the video I liked and subscribed. Fellow Indy neighbor here also.
Thanks! Just curious... are you a home automation/Home Assistant user? Just before the pandemic hit, I was looking for other Home Assistant/automation users in the Indy/central IN area to judge interest in some sort of users group around Home Assistant and/or automation. I had to put that on pause... so I went out and created a blog and RUclips channel instead! But the idea has hung around in my head... if we ever get back to "normal" some day! Let me know if you decide to tackle this project (or any others) and run into any questions. Thanks again for the kind words... and the sub!
@@ResinChemTech no sir I’m neither home automation or assistant user. I’m a Hvac tech but I do a lot of diy to my home and always wanted to do this to my stairs but never really seen anything I like until your channel popped up.
Just as an FYI... I do have another video, if you haven't seen it, with basically the same setup but doesn't require Home Assistant, automation or any other hub: ruclips.net/video/b4s_VEtVWY4/видео.html Of course, it doesn't have all the effects and options that the "full" version has, but it is standalone and does offer a way to recreate the stair lighting system without the whole Home Assistant/automation code portion. I did this version by request for folks that don't have Home Assistant or any sort of home automation hub.
Great! Let me know how it goes. If you are going to use my YAML, just assure you grab the right version of the Gist file as recent changes in HA and WLED broke the older version. If you are comfortable with YAML, I'm sure you'll have no problems but it seems that this is where most folks have reached out to me with issues... integrating my YAML automations into their particular HA instance. Don't hesitate to reach out if you do run into any questions or problems... and good luck with your project!
@@ResinChemTech Will do! I've ordered some stuff to start the work. Primarily the channel, but also the PIR sensors and some D1s (I think I'm also nearly out of D1s - I've mostly been using ESP32 and ESP32 D1 Mini's of late, but the ESP8266s are plenty for this project). I have an extra LED strip so I'll start with one side to verify I like the channel I've chosen. I imagine I'll just create my own HA automations so they make the most sense to me - I have at least 15 or 20 that I've written so far for lots of little things around the house that are motion or time or location dependent. I've got a few ESPHome devices already and I've even written WLED plugins, so I should be good with those. I just hadn't thought about putting the strips down the side (duh!) or lighting two strips in parallel from one data line - that works well? Some of my WLED projects... I made this for our 25th anniversary (3d printed body, designed and printed by me, uses 3mm fiber optics, runs WLED) ruclips.net/video/hsc0FMRmU38/видео.html . I made this lamp for my grandson's birthday, the video shows off the plugins I made for WLED to provide on-board UI ruclips.net/video/tITQY80rIOA/видео.html .
Sounds like you have plenty of experience with HA and WLED, so I'm sure you'll figure that part out. Splitting the data signal worked out just fine and hasn't caused me any issues. I honestly didn't know at the very start if that would work, but I didn't want two separate controllers (knowing they'd never actually truly stay in-sync.. even if I used the WLED syncing feature). But with the single signal line.. and with the same number of pixels on both sides, they are perfectly in sync for all effects. I did have to experiment with various motion detectors. I originally tried a couple of Zigbee versions (thinking that wireless would save me from running the extra USB cable), but everything else I tried had too long of a cool down period... up to 45 seconds in some case. The ones I ended up selecting had the shortest cooldown I could find... around 5 seconds.... but it did mean I had to run USB power to the one at the top. But as I showed in the video, using the flat cable pretty much makes it hidden. Again, good luck and drop me a line when you get it done!
@@ResinChemTech Project completed yesterday. ruclips.net/video/DaU0u5YZguc/видео.html for a video. The parts I used for the project (along with links) are all in my video description. Thanks for the inspiration to finally install stair lights (I'd been considering it for a year). The missus loves them.
I clicked on like and subscribe the moment I realised you are making all the needed information available for free! Thank you!!! 👍 PS: I am not planning to make use of any of the information available 😇🤪
Thanks! You never know... and you might be surprised! I never thought I'd be as involved in smart home tech and automation like I am now. But then you see something on RUclips and think "I could really use something like that to solve a problem I have in my house". One thing leads to another and before you know it, you have over 100 "smart" devices installed! But even if you don't go down that route, I appreciate the time you took to watch and comment! Thanks again!
Thanks! I try to do projects that are not impossible to recreate or require a lot of specialized equipment... and that can be removed without having to do major restoration work! As I mention in a couple of videos, we will likely sell our house in a few years and most of this smart home tech will have to come back out unless the new owners want to keep some/all of it. I like some of the other videos with the lights across the treads, but they are much more complicated and require construction to hide wires, etc. Thanks for watching and taking time to comment!
Thanks. Glad you found it interesting. It can be a bit complicated and a lot of folks may not have Home Assistant or another compatible automation system, but I followed this up with a similar system that is a bit easier to configure and works standalone... without the need for Home Assistant or any other sort of hub. Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment!
That all depends on your tolerance level for making modifications to things like the stair stringers, drywall, carpet, etc. I think the 'ugliest' part of this install is the wiring that has to run under the first tread lip to the opposite side stringer for the second side lights. It really isn't as noticeable as it appears in the video when standing and with the similarly colored Velcro holding it in place. I "could" have cut the carpet, ran the wiring underneath and then glued the carpet back in place. But that wasn't a modification that I was willing to make as my goal was to be able to remove the entire system without the need to make any repairs. There are a lot of other videos out there on making a stair lighting system similar to this... but with pretty substantial 'construction' or changes to the existing stairs. My goal here was to create something that wouldn't require any of that and could easily be removed.... with the downside of the exposed wiring. But you could definitely make this install 'neater' if you are willing to make some structural changes.
Primarily because the light controller is running WLED firmware. This provides over a hundred different effects... and not something I would want to rewrite or code myself. The sensors, on the other hand, are running ESPHome... same deal. Both integrate nicely into Home Assistant... which handles all the automation processes. Obviously, you cannot put two different firmware versions (WLED and ESPHome) on a single controller. I do have a standalone version that uses a single controller ( ruclips.net/video/b4s_VEtVWY4/видео.html ) for both the lights and the sensors, written with Arduino code. However, it does not have anywhere near the features or number of effects of WLED. No way that I wanted to try to recreate my own version of that great firmware. But in a nutshell, that's why more than one controller is used. It also simplifies the wiring that needs to run between the controller and sensors, since the sensors only need power and not an additional data line.
I hear ya... and I don't disagree! But my goal with all my smart home tech is to avoid making major modifications since we will likely sell in a few years and all the tech has to come back out. I don't want to be faced with making major repairs when things are removed. Completely hiding the wiring would have required drilling or routing the stringers, drilling through drywall, etc. I agree it would have made a more attractive install... but at the expense of making alterations to the stairs themselves. Thanks for your feedback!
@@ResinChemTech My view is almost entirely the opposite. I'd probably leave all the tech in for increasing the perceived value of the house. I bought a fixer upper house though from 1948, tore down all exterior walls to add insulation, so I don't mind if I make permanent changes as long as it looks good and adds charm to the house long-term. I can tell you know what you are talking about though, can only assume you are some level of an electrical engineer or just a tech enthusiast. EDIT: Should of read your shirt, clearly says Cyber Security lol. I'm a DevOps engineer personally.
If I could hide a big power supply I'd do this in a heart beat. I've currently got a stairs light, that is visible from the main room that is distracting, I just don't have a good power\hide option.
Well, I know that some folks have contacted me and let me know that they have taken this same system and installed it along the baseboards of a long hallway to provide lighting at night when going to the bathroom or kitchen. So, I guess you don't technically need to have stairs to install something like this! Just a thought... thanks for watching and taking time to leave a comment!
You are amazing ,a very nice job indeed , I’ve nearly finished this project on my stairs too,I was wondering if It’s possible to operate this from a 5inch screen instead of my phone, if so could someone please help,many thanks Paul.
Wow, thanks! When you say 'operate this' are you talking about WLED... or Home Assistant, or what? Either way, both WLED and Home Assistant have mobile apps that could be installed on a small tablet (Android and/or iOS). Of course, they both also work in a browser if your display has that. So, I'm happy to try to help, but I guess I need to know what it is that you'd like to control (e.g. WLED effects?) and what type of 5" screen you are talking about... and what are its capabilities/operating system?
Thank you for your reply and time,any suggestions on which screen to get?I will be installing home assistance ,I’m building your controller but got 12V strip lights, dose this alter the build of this controller please,many thanks for your help and time, many thanks Paul from the UK.
Just about any tablet will work as long as it has a web browser. I am using a couple of older Samsung tablets in different places in the house, but to be honest, Home Assistant handles most automations (like the stair lights) without any interaction, and many of the other things we interact using voice control with Google Home via Home Assistant. As far as the 12V LED strips, you will obviously need to step that voltage down to 5V for the controller via a buck converter or other means (the D1 Mini will go "poof" if you try to feed it 12V). If you use separate power sources for the LEDs and the controller, then you must have a common ground between the controller and the LED strip or things won't function normally. Otherwise, as long as you feed 5V to the controller, the build is the same. Hope that helps! Good luck with the project (and Home Assistant... I love what it can do!). Feel free to reach out again if you run into additional questions or problems.
Thats actually pretty cool looking.. brightness could be lowered a lil bit though.. I simply use a USB mini PIR sensor and USB LED strips for the living room and bathroom, for the stairs i use a motion light i modified powered by 18650s or a USB power bank to recharge the batteries.
Thanks! I think it looks a little brighter than it actually is because LEDs simply "overwhelm" the camera... but the brightness is controllable via WLED. I'd be interested in your battery-operated versions. Someone else was just asking about that a few comments ago. I tried a short 20-pixel LED strip in a closet, activated by a door sensor powered by a USB power bank (12,500 mAh I think) and could never get more than a couple of days before needing to recharge. Probably due to the constant power draw from the microcontroller, but using an ESP32 with deep sleep took too long to wake up and respond when the door opened. I just haven't had any luck with battery-powered LED projects.... but I'm not saying it can't be done!
@@ResinChemTech GE Wireless Motion-Sensing Moveable LED Light Bar (Walmart) is the style im currently using but any similar style could be modified in the same way. i use a TP4056 module, i have it outside of the unit as how it looks doesnt bother me, the 18650s (2) sit nicely on the back of it. When the battery voltage gets low the Light itself blinks a red LED as an indicator, but instead of waiting for it to blink i just click the power bank every now and then to charge it back up. I can go a month or so before it naturally needs to be recharged, if you have it in a closet then it should last even longer, assuming you use decent 18650s with low self discharge, i use the WESTINGHOUSE 2000mAh 18650s that you can find in store, the Hyper Tough batteries also sold in store do the job also, but the WH ones are better. Hope this helps :)
You are more than welcome! I wish I could take credit for the effects, but they are part of the WLED firmware that I used. The effects are actually much nicer than in the video, but it is really difficult to film LEDs as they tend to overwhelm the camera (well, at least with the equipment I'm using). Thanks for watching and taking time to comment.
I mean I love it, I want it, can you make one for me as a kit , I don't code can't code so I can't make them do the cool things , but I can install and make the wires disappear, I've been looking for this but have no way of getting them, I have a building co and would like to start using this basically everywhere, so please help
Unfortunately I don't have the time or resources to build, ship, charge, etc. for any sort of stair kits. I try to design my videos for the DIY crowd. Note that this particular video shows an installation that requires the end user to have Home Assistant. If you are building for others, there is a very high chance that they may not have (or want to deal with) the Home Assistant automation system. However, I have created a version that works without Home Assistant and doesn't require any other automation system. It is a bit more basic in terms of number of effects and features, but the physical build is nearly identical and it still functions (via motion) in much the same way. You may want to take a look at this video and see if it might be a better fit in your situation: ruclips.net/video/b4s_VEtVWY4/видео.html
Well... as the title of the video states, my goal was to do this "without staircase modification". I explain the reason why in one of my recent videos ( ruclips.net/video/rKAZxDtShCo/видео.html ). Naturally, the wires could be much better hidden if you are willing to drill into the staircase, pull carpet or cut into drywall. My goal was to install this system without making any changes... and so that the system could be removed in just a few minutes and you'd never know it was there. But I fully understand the WAF! Luckily for me, mine is pretty lenient when it comes to the basement "man cave". Now, if I wanted to install this on our main stair case to the second floor... that would be a totally different situation (and don't think I haven't considered it... but that would have a very, very low WAF!)
Thank you for the informative and thorough explanation. I would like to do similar outside on my pathway from the street to the house. It is going to be 40ft long, 38 inches wide, stamped concrete with led embedded on the top of the concrete(facing the sky, not the sides) along the length. Also I would like to have motion sensors every 24 inches or so, so when someone steps in the middle of the pathway still to lit. Could you please answer several questions: 1. Can I use it without Home assistant or any other platform/server because this is a foreign language for me? If it is absolutely necessary I would educate myself, but prefer not to. 2. Can I install multiple motion sensors and also are you familiar with any waterproof that can face up since I do not want to install anything on the side and higher than the walkway so I would not trip, able to mow etc Thank you in advance for your help.
There's a lot to cover with something like that... more than I can cover here in the comments, but I'll address a few basic items: With an install that big (and that many LEDs), you'd probably need to use an ESP32 instead of an ESP8266. You would also need a very substantial power supply, along with power injection along the LED strips. Naturally, all of this would have to be waterproof. I do have an LED controller that works with motion detectors and doesn't require Home Assistant (or any other system). You can see a video of that here: ruclips.net/video/b4s_VEtVWY4/видео.html But it currently only supports a maximum of 2 motion detectors, so you'd have to modify the code to work with more than that. Finally, there are commercial outdoor motion detectors, but I don't know of anything like you describe. You'd likely have to build something custom and figure out how to power it and make it waterproof. It sounds like a neat project, but it is also a pretty complicated one to build yourself. I hope I've provided at least a little helpful information to give you some things to consider.
Thanks. I've had other ask about the possibility of having me building this for them. In all honesty, even if I had time to assembly kits (and all the other work related to shipping, logistics, etc), everyone's stairs would be different enough in terms of length, power outlets locations, etc. that any sort of kit would still involve a lot of DIY for installation anyway (such as cutting rails to length, installing the LED strips, etc.). The only thing a kit might provide would be a pre-assembled controller with WLED installed. But that already exists, if you are interested. Quindor, over at QuinLED already sells a pre-build controller (with logic level shifter, fuse protection, etc): quinled.info/pre-assembled-quinled-dig-uno/
You might take a look at the written version of this project. It has wiring diagrams and shows how all the different components and parts are wired together: resinchemtech.blogspot.com/2021/07/simple-motion-activated-led-stair.html If you have any particular questions after taking a look at that, don't hesitate to reach back out and ask.
Btw you don't need the logic level shift with the ws2812bs, they will accept a digital signal all the way down to 1.7 volts, so 3.3 is more than adequate, if you don't believe me check the datasheet for the ws2812b itself, it'll say the same thing
You may be correct, but my references say: "The datasheet tells us that a logic high input will be detected at a minimum voltage of 0.7 * Vcc. If you’re running the LED at 5V, this means 5 V * 0.7 = 3.5 V will be needed for the WS2812 to detect a ‘1’ on the data line." Here is the data sheet I am referencing (cdn-shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/WS2812B.pdf) and you can see that it also notes a working voltage starting at 3.5V. While you can sometimes get away with 3.3V (or even just a bit lower), there can be signal instability that might cause random issues. Add in the fact that I sometimes place my controller a meter or more away from the first pixel and voltage drop from just the wire resistance itself is enough to cause intermittent problems. In my opinion, it is well worth the $1 cost of the logic level shifter (or even a sacrificial pixel) to boost the signal to 5V. This allows plenty of headspace for any voltage drop due to the wiring run between the controller and LED strip. Nearly all references that I see online (or from others) recommend use of a voltage shifter or sacrificial pixel. But like all DIY projects, there are many possibilities and if you can get a reliable signal without the shifter, then by all means feel free to omit it.
Very good, that's almost exactly how I want to do it. Is it possible to make it work regardless if the Home Assistant is not working/not available? Can i use with WLED FW, 2 motion sensors and possibly a lux sensor? I would like it can work on its own, but it can also be controlled via the WLED app/Home Assistant. Can this be solved? Can you make a video and/or description about this?
Well.. if you are using WLED (instead of the standalone option), then WLED has to be able to handle all of the automations if Home Assistant isn't available. While it might be possible to use a motion sensor and/or a lux sensor with the WLED controller for some basic features like turning on the lights, it doesn't have the automation engine to do the more advanced options... like a timer to turn the lights off after a set time, use two sensors in conjunction, etc. The standalone version builds in this automation engine, but doesn't have all the WLED features. So, it's more or less picking one over the other. You can use WLED, but then need a separate automation platform (like Home Assistant, NodeRed, etc.)... or you can build the automations into custom firmware (standalone), but then you cannot install both this custom firmware and WLED on the same controller. There are a number of custom user modifications available for WLED. There might be something that that you could add as custom mod to WLED that would give you close to what you want. But I haven't tried or tested any of these. You can review the list of user contributions here: github.com/Aircoookie/WLED/tree/main/usermods
Good day to you sir, thank you some much for sharing your knowledge. I have been wanting to do this for a while now and I have all the components, and I'm ready to start assembling it. I'm waiting on a new led strip so that I can add lights to both sides. I am still having a bit of brain block, trying to understand how the two ESPHome D1 minis talk to the WLED controller..
I assume you are referring to the D1 Minis that are used for the motion detection? Home Assistant and Home Assistant automations are how the devices 'talk'. The Home Assistant automation uses the motion from the motion sensors as a trigger to then turn on the LEDs via the LED controller. The latter part of the video covers that and you can find links to the entire Home Assistant automation in the video description. I hope that helps. This particular version does require Home Assistant or a similar home automation platform to work and to allow those components to 'talk' to each other.
@@ResinChemTech thank you for the quick response, I appreciate it. Does this section need to be the same on both of the D1 minis that are running ESPHOME? binary_sensor: - name: "Breakbeam Sensor" == ??? id: breakbeam_sensor platform: template device_class: motion
Are you using the new ToF sensors that I showed in this video ( ruclips.net/video/ZRb_wpJo1AM/видео.html ) as that is the ESPHome code for these types of sensors. If you are using the PIR sensors as shown in _this_ video, then you need to use the ESPHome code from the Github repository that does NOT have _tof in the file name. The Github repo has example ESPHome for both, the ToF sensors (with _tof in the name) and the PIR sensors (without _tof in the name).
Thank You for the video . I followed step by step and it's up and running on my stairs. Question when walking past the first sensor it detects my first leg and turns on the lights but sometimes it detects my trailing leg and and turns off the lights . Is there any adjustments that I could make to fix this issue ?
You are using the ToF sensors and not the PIR sensors, correct? I had the same issue initially because the ToF sensors react so quickly. There are two things you can do, and it might be a combination of both that works out the best in your situation. First, you can shorten the 'trip' distance of the sensor in ESPHome to cover about 1/2 - 3/4 the width of the stairs. That way one leg would trip the sensor but the second leg would be outside that range and wouldn't trip. But this only works reliably if you always tend to step on the first step with the leg nearest the sensor. What worked best for me was to add a "for" clause to both the on and off automations in Home Assistant. In other words, you have an automation for both the the top and bottom sensor with a trigger that is: from: 'off' to: 'on' You would add a time to that so that the sensor must remain in that state for a minimum amount of time. For me, that was around 250 ms. So you just add a "for" statement to the trigger, so it looks like this: to: 'on' for: milliseconds: 250 Repeat this for the other automations that go from "on" to "off" as well, adding the 'for' statement. You may need to adjust the amount of time and/or use this in combination of changing the detection distance. It may take some trial and error, but you should be able to get it dialed in so that your second leg will rarely trip the sensor right after the first leg. Let me know if you have any follow up questions.
Very nice. Do you know of a motion sensor that could be used as a touchless button for something like this? Something where maybe the range is very short, somewhere around 1/2" to trigger it? My idea is to "tap" it with your foot to get it go on.
My first thought is to use an ultrasonic or lidar sensor (like I used in my parking assistant and car detection vid). That way, you'd be measuring distance instead of motion. When something (like your foot) moved in front of the sensor at less than a predetermined distance (say < 2"), that could trigger the lights on/off via Home Assistant. Using this method, someone passing by the sensor at a 'normal' distance would not trigger the lights. I think the challenge here might the the speed of reactivity of the sensor (how quickly it reports a distance change). But it might be worth a shot!
@@ResinChemTech Thanks, yes, that's a direction I was looking at. It might work. I found these just now also and it seems like it might be the answer: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07T91JXHW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
@@ResinChemTech This is interesting too. Looks like what you were talking about and it goes down to 2cm which is the feature I couldn't find in other ultrasonic sensors. I ordered this too and will see what works best. www.amazon.com/dp/B088R3V9X8?psc=1&smid=A2SNA9AH12A511&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp
A question for you sir. Does the staircase lighting work as "stand-alone", install-it-and you-are-done? I want to make one for my daughter and she does not have, nor want - Home assistant, ESPhome, or WLED. Once the controllers are flashed, does it work all by itself?
This particular version requires Home Assistant to work. However, I did develop a standalone version that doesn't require Home Assistant (or any other external system). It doesn't have all the effects that WLED has, but it does have the same "chase" lights you see in this video... and a few others (although those effects were added after the video was made). You can see a video of that version here: ruclips.net/video/b4s_VEtVWY4/видео.html You can also find a lot more detail, along with the current lighting effects in the related blog article and Github repo. Links to those can be found in the video description of the above video.
There are additional details in the video description, and you can find a step by step guide, along with the full parts list in the related blog article: resinchemtech.blogspot.com/2021/07/simple-motion-activated-led-stair.html
Sorry, but I'm not able to build, ship and accept payment for any of my projects at this time. However, if you are interested in a pre-build controller with WLED, you can purchase one from Quindor over at QuinLED: quinled.info/pre-assembled-quinled-dig-uno/ Unfortunately, I do not have time with my current projects to build kits. In addition, each kit would have to be custom made for a particular set of stairs which would make it cost-prohibitive to assemble, ship and sell.
Excellent video, thank you!! Instead of stairs, I'd like to do under cabinets and shelving on each side of the vent hood - with say 6 different lines (minimum, and short runs) do you think I'd need more than one esp32? I'd ideally tie everything together in the cabinet of the vent hood... conceptually I can't visualize having a single controller
Well, there would be different ways to approach this depending on how you want everything to work and function. Technically, the ESP32 can support up to 10 different channels or pins. It can get tricky in terms of setting those up and the segments to match. You can read more about how that is done on the WLED offical site here: kno.wled.ge/features/multi-strip/ A different option is to use multiple controllers and sync them together. That is how I approached my kitchen cabinets. I have a row of cabinets on each side of the kitchen. I technically have four controllers... two on each side (one for the top of the cabinets and one for the under side). All four controllers are synced. When any controller is set to a color or effect, then the same color/effect is synced to the other 3 controllers. Of course this does require more wiring and a separate power supply for each side of the kitchen. So there are different ways to approach it... using either a single controller with multiple pins/data outputs on a single ESP32... or multiple controllers that can optionally be synced to act as one. I hope that helps. Good luck with your project. My wife loves the undercabinet lighting for the additional workspace light.. and I love the ability to use colors for special occasions, entertaining, etc.
@ResinChem Tech Thanks for your quick reply and level of detail in your thoughts. The article was helpful in the idea that any pin can be used on the ESP32. When you say your controllers are synced, is that something you're doing in the WLED UI, or, an automation you're running in HomeAssistant (e.g. trigger: turn on lights at 1700, action: Turn on light 1,2,3,4, etc. with no sec delay built in each)?
I'm using the WLED sync feature. But you could use Home Assistant automations as well. The nice feature about the WLED sync is that any individual controller can temporarily (and easily) be removed from the sync group if you want that segment or strip to be a different color and/or run a different effect. Then when you want, you can easily sync up the controllers again via WLED (or HA automation). So, for example, if your controllers are normally synced, but you want to create a special theme night, you can 'unsync' the controllers and set some of the LEDs to pink and another set to blue. Then when ready to return to 'normal' operation, just enable the sync on the controllers again.
That's a good idea... and actually I wanted to do that. Unfortunately, the flat cable was just slightly too wide to fit inside the aluminum channel "vertically" without interfering with the diffuser. Turning the cable "horizontally", made it visible as it overlapped the LEDs. In theory, I could have ran the cable under the double-sided tape before putting that down, but that would have resulted in a "hump" and potentially affected the adhesion of the strips to the tape.. and the tape to the channel. In all honesty, I can't see the USB cable at all unless I actually lay down on the stairs and look for it. But with all DIY projects, there are multiple ways. I appreciate the suggestion and it might give someone else an idea of how they might build a similar project.
Hi, thank you for the video. I am new for this, I was confused on the diagram system configuration. How is the two sensors (up and down stair) communicated with the WLED controller. Best regards, TC
The motion detectors, and the WLED controller, are integrated into Home Assistant. Home Assistant takes the change in the motion detector and turns the LEDs on or off, and sets the proper effect up or down depending on which motion detector fired. This particular system will not work without Home Assistant. However, if you are not a Home Assistant user, I did create another version (that has a few less features and effects, but works basically just the same). This version works 'standalone' and does not require Home Assistant or any other external system. You can see a video of that system here: ruclips.net/video/b4s_VEtVWY4/видео.html
While I utilize Home Assistant in a lot of my video projects, I don't have a video specifically on setting up and using Home Assistant. But there are a ton of videos on RUclips about the subject... just search "Home Assistant". I do have a little more information on the automations I use in Home Assistant in my related blog article... and copies of my Home Assistant automation code can be found in the related Github repo (links to both are in the video description of this video). However, this is just the automation code used in Home Assistant... not information on how to install and setup Home Assistant itself. Home Assistant is a great home automation platform that allows you to bring thousands of devices together under one application and create nice dashboards, create advanced automations, etc. However, it isn't necessarily a quick and easy undertaking. If you have other smart devices, then Home Assistant might be a good choice. But I don't think I'd install Home Assistant just for these stair lights. In that case, you'd be better off with the standalone version that I shared in my previous comment.
I wonder if you could ditch the PIR sensors and use a mm wave radar sensor instead as you can measure distance to target so light the correct steps in real-time based on where someone is standing e.g of they change direction on the stairs
Yeah... as I mentioned in this video's description, I replaced those PIR sensors with ToF sensors... and did a follow up video ( ruclips.net/video/ZRb_wpJo1AM/видео.html ). The ToF sensors rely on distance (and have a narrower FOV), but the distance is converted to a boolean in ESPHome so that Home Assistant logs aren't flooded with continuous distance measurements. The ToF sensors have been much better than the original PIR sensors... especially for my particular staircase design and opening at the botton.
The DigUno would basically just replace the WLED controller that I built, so it would simplify from the fact that you wouldn't have to build the controller yourself. Everything else would remain basically the same. However, the next version of WLED (currently in beta) is slated to add support for multiple buttons. With that (on either the home built controller or the DigUno), it *might* be possible to eliminate the two D1 minis that are used for the motion detection and wire the motion detectors directly the WLED controller. I won't know the answer to that until I get a chance to test it and determine the changes needed to the automation.
Just the power or the data? For the power, as long as you are using adequate gauge wire, 20 feet should be OK. Of course, the longer the run, the bigger the voltage drop, and the lower the starting voltage will be and that will increase the possibility that you will need to do power injection depending on the number of your LEDs. As always, I recommend that you try it first... on the bench or even just laying everything out on the floor somewhere. It there are problems, it will be much easier to identity and address them before you complete the final installation.
@@ResinChemTech i was thinking power but you answered that question. My goal is to have the wled board and power supply hidden away about 20ft away. I suppose the board could be closer and i could intergrate a motion sensor in the same unit like you did. Im trying to hide unsightly wires and power supplys to win the wifes approval. by putting the power supply far away it would allow me to tuck the wires under the trim on the way to my stairs.
Understood! The WAF is important and shouldn't be overlooked! I think if you can use the largest gauge that is practical for the power (and you can still hide it) the better off you will be. And for the controller, it's also probably fine located a distance away as long as you use some sort of logic level shifter (the I2C compatible style, the SN74ACHT125N style, or even a sacrificial pixel). Again, a bench test can be very helpful. Lights that are fading from white to pink or red (and dimming or flickering at the end of the strip) are a sure sign of a voltage drop issue, and LEDs that just misbehave in general, flickering all along the strip or showing the wrong colors/patterns are a sign of a poor or weak data signal. Good luck with your project... and a high WAF!
You have a few different options. First, the design files for my enclosures are available on Thingiverse: Motion Detectors: www.thingiverse.com/thing:4969716 Controller: www.thingiverse.com/thing:4969733 You can take these files and there are a number of online services that will print and ship to you. A cheaper alternative might be if you have a college or maker space in your area that might print them for you. Or you can find a number of small electronic project boxes on Amazon that you can modify to meet your needs. This is what I used (or whatever I had laying around the house) before I got a 3D printer. I've used everything from candy boxes to empty toilet paper tubes in some of my projects. 3D printed parts are not required to make this project work... they just make things a bit "neater". Technically, you could tape or glue the motion detectors directly to the stairs with no case at all.... or just be creative with what you might find around the house.
By "other lights", are you referring to the general room lights? If so, they actually aren't changing at all. It's the camera trying to automatically adjust the exposure due to the brightness of the LEDs... LEDs are very hard to film because they tend to overwhelm the camera. So, while it might appear that the room lights are dimming or getting brighter... they actually aren't. They are staying exactly the same. It's the camera that is 'dimming' the exposure. But let me know if you are talking about something else.
Of course you can substitute the LED strips I used. I had the WS2812b strips on hand and used them for other projects. I think some differences here are that the Govee version are 30 pixels/m vs. the 60 pixels/m I used and are 12V instead of 5V. And for automations via Home Assistant, you'd have to add the Govee integration. But like most DIY projects, there are multiple ways to accomplish the same thing. Good luck with your project... and thanks for taking the time to comment.
Not this particular version. But I did develop a bit more basic version that works without Home Assistant (or any other automation hub). You can see that version here: ruclips.net/video/b4s_VEtVWY4/видео.html
You can find the complete parts list for what I used in my related blog article at: resinchemtech.blogspot.com/2021/07/simple-motion-activated-led-stair.html
Hi, This is a very useful video. I just have a question and since your more than competent at this, I'm hoping you can answer. I have five steps from my decking to the garden. I want to put some IP65 Led strips under each step. I need to be motion activated. I can manage that. But my challenge is I want to use a solar power bank and I want to add on a PIR to the lights only come on with motion. Google assistant compatibility would be a luxury if possible So my question is, is it possible to add on 5 steps with of IP65 RGBW strips to a solar power bank with a PIR? If so, with Google assistant? Any and all help will be appreciated. Many thanks
Well... anything is possible! I think the challenge here will be the battery power... even with a solar charger. Both the WLED controller and PIR board will constantly draw power, even when the lights are off. You could move up to an ESP32 and use deep sleep to save battery, but the wake-up time (and time to connect to wifi) would make the motion-detection portion nearly useless. I tried the battery concept for small strip of LEDs in a closet (maybe 20 pixels) and the battery/power bank drained in two days, even with limited closet openings. Google integration is possible if using Home Assistant. There may be other ways. WLED natively supports Amazon Alexa.
Excellent video! It’s motivated me to try this. I was wondering is there a way to creat a wireless PIR sensor or even button? I was hoping maybe a battery powered separate D1 mini with PIR could link up to and control another D1 mini which is being used as the main WLED driver but is out of sight.
Thanks! Glad it provided you with some motivation to try it yourself! It is certainly possible to use something wireless for the sensors at the top and bottom of the staircase. I'm not sure that a D1 Mini is the correct choice as it would probably draw too much power and quickly drain a battery (wifi devices are power hungry!). I'd look at maybe something like a Zigbee motion sensor (especially if you already have a Zigbee network). The issue with these, however, is that they generally have long cool down periods (like 30 seconds or more), which could be a challenge in terms of the automation... since the sensor would continue to show motion long after someone has exited the stairs. I believe Aqara has a new motion sensor where you can specify the cooldown, but I haven't tried or tested them. You may also have issues with the wide field of view (FOV) with a PIR sensor like this, depending on your stair configuration. I had this issue at the bottom of my stairs, and just recently released a video where I replaced these PIR sensors with TOF sensors (you can see that vid here: ruclips.net/video/ZRb_wpJo1AM/видео.html ) - but this would also be a wired/D1 Mini solution, although it does work much better than the PIR option. You could always try a battery-operated D1 Mini... something like a LiPo battery would probably be best... but I know that from my original mailbox solution that used a battery-driven ESP32 (that even when into deep sleep when not in use), I couldn't get more than about a month out of the battery. I suspect an D1 Mini that has to constantly be awake and watch for motion would drain even faster than that... possibly within a week. If you find a good wireless solution, please pass it along! I'd love to share it with my viewers and provide that option. Also feel free to reach back out if you have any additional questions. Good luck with your project!
@@ResinChemTech yeah looks like your’re completely right. D1 mini approx 40mA draw which will soon take its toll on a battery. I will still look into other options but I’m not hopeful. I don’t have a zigbee network but assume it’s relatively cheap to set up so could be an option. Yes I had already seen your video on the PIR upgrade and intended to do that. The only thing with that side of it that I need to do now is work out how to get an ambient light sensor in so that it only come on when below a certain lighting level. I get I could use another input (probably have to be analogue) and then have a condition based statement saying “if THIS and MOTION then turn light on”. Did you bother with this yourself or just have them come on in any lighting condition? ****edit***** seen that I would need to create an automation with the trigger as either the upstairs or downstairs motion sensor and then have a condition of lux level below a certain value to achieve only lighting up in the dark. Slowly getting there. Just need to make sure that the D1 mini can cope efficiently with the three sensors.
I don't use any sort of light sensor for the stairs. They come on all the time unless I toggle the input_boolean to disable the automations. I do, however, lower the brightness of the LEDs if it is after 10 pm and the overhead basement lights are off. I did this just fairly recently as I was getting blinded by the bright LED stair lights after watching TV in a dark basement and then heading up to bed. With no windows in the basement, there isn't any 'ambient' light, other than the overhead recessed lighting... which is also automated in Home Assistant... so, I can use the brightness level setting of the overhead lighting to alter the stair lights. As far as a light level sensor, of course you can just use a photoresistor. But in my new garage multisensor, I use a photosensitive light module. This uses a photoresistor as well, but had a digital binary sensor that is 'on' or 'off' based on an adjustable light level. They are only about $2 apiece, but easier to use than a photoresistor, analog level and trying to convert that to lux. You can see that in my video on an updated multisensor ( ruclips.net/video/tVTha44i8SI/видео.html ). The D1 Mini won't have a problem dealing with both a motion sensor and a light level sensor. But you are right that motion would serve as the trigger and light level as a condition in your automation. Let me know if you have additional questions or thought!
You can find the overall wiring diagram in my related blog article: resinchemtech.blogspot.com/2021/07/simple-motion-activated-led-stair.html The circuit diagram for the LED controller can be found in this blog article: resinchemtech.blogspot.com/2021/01/building-your-own-led-light-strip.html
Yeah... it could. But the issue I found with many motion detectors, especially the Zigbee ones I have (Aqara and Hue), there is a significant cool down period (up to 45 seconds) before they reset from motion to no motion. It's not that you couldn't deal with that in the automation, but the motion detectors I selected was due to the fact that they had a very short cool down (about 5 seconds). In fact, Travis over at DigiblurDIY did a thorough study of motion detectors and cool down times (ruclips.net/video/3U1fOqkk3Wg/видео.html). It would be up to you to determine if you could live with, or code around, any extended cool down periods for different motion detectors. Actually, you could trigger on anything that works for your install. Someone else even mentioned using an ultrasonic distance sensor as a trigger... or a load cell/pressure plate, etc. Whatever would work for you to trigger the lights to come on and go off could easily be adapted from the way I did it.
I love this project. Kudos! Can share the 3 printer enclosure file with us? I cannot find one that's cover one side like the one you have. Oh, I'm new at 3D printing.
Yep... you can find links to the 3D printed parts (and much more) at the related blog article for this project: resinchemtech.blogspot.com/2021/07/simple-motion-activated-led-stair.html (you'll find the links to the 3D printed parts at the end of the article). But if you haven't seen it yet, I made an improvement to the sensors for the top and bottom of the stairs since this original video. If you are considering building these stair lights yourself, you may want to take a quick peak at the following video and decide if these new sensors might work better for you as well: ruclips.net/video/ZRb_wpJo1AM/видео.html Good luck and let me know if you have any other questions!
Great great video! I have the stairs set up the same way but I have it hooked up to my raspberry pi system. Can I just copy paste the code from your description to my raspberry pi and it work the same? The last person who owned the home left it hooked up but it hasn’t worked since I moved in.
Well, there are three parts to the "code". First is WLED, which runs on the ESP8266 controller. Then ESPHome is used on the motion detectors. Finally, there is the automation code, which is in YAML within Home Assistant. You could theoretically run the whole thing on a Pi, but not directly using the code that I used. You'd have to write something that would run on the Pi, detecting the motion via GPIO pins and then sending a signal out to the LED lights. Sorry... but the code I used is pretty much designed for ESP8266 and Home Assistant. But I'm pretty sure you could write everything in something like Python that would replicate what I've done here and run standalone on a Pi.
Sorry... I don't offer any of my projects pre-built or for sale. The goal of my channel is to show you how to build your own and I simply do not have time to build, ship and manage the logistics of selling any of my projects.
@ResinChemTech if I build lights and sensors, can you be able to help me with code in my home assistant because I'm new in there and don't know how to make it? Thanks
I'm always happy to answer questions and to try to assist. If you look in the video description for this video, you will find links to a written guide that covers a fair amount of the code and setup, as well as a link to a Github repo that has all the code I used and more information related to how to set this up and use it in Home Assistant. But if you have read that information and get stuck somewhere, just reach back out and I will do my best to help you out.
It's all handled in the Home Assistant automations and determined by which sensor triggers and whether the lights are already on or off. If the bottom motion triggers and the lights are off, they are turned on with the wipe effect and no reverse flag. Similarly, if the top motion sensor is triggered and the lights are off, they are turned on with the reverse flag enabled. If either sensor is tripped and the lights are already on, then they are turned off (that's how the effect is stopped when exiting the stairs).
Funny you should say that! At one point in time, the lights would occasionally come on by themselves. Made me think ghosts too. Actually, it was a faulty motion detector... once I replaced that the "ghosts" were exorcised!
Hello, I didn't get your name Saturday during the live stream. I'm Dan a DJ, gadget guy, Creator/Streamer and WLED fanatic. You have a bunch of HA knowledge I didnt even know was possible. Here's my two wonderments after watching this clip. How many leds total are you using. I estimate around 400 for both sides give or take if you are using 60leds/m. If yer using 144/m then disregard the next question. Next question is baffling me ... Why are you using 40amps or 300 and some plus watts when it's not needed. It sounded like these two strips were the only things to be connected. Using my approx 400 estimate, you should be able to power them just fine with a psu that is rated for 150 watts which includes the 20% buffer. If I misunderstood one of the variable or made a mistake, I'm sorry, but the gen rule of thumb with ws2812b leds is each pixel needs 0.3 watt for each to be powered safely. Then the only unknown is how much copper conductor they used in building the strip. Some use far too less and voltage drop is easily seen within the single strip which taught me the cheapest is rarely an acceptable product for me. Again, great to meet you the other day. I'll show you some of my creations as soon as I upload them. I found a translucent water tube that makes a quick diffuser. I just fishtape my strips into the tube and boom. but making a round continuous tube with wiring going in and coming out was tricky and figured out a way, just not a perfect way but it looks great as an overhead general lighting or a music activated light when listening or mixing music.
First... thanks for watching the livestream. I'm not as comfortable doing those, but it is a good way to interact with my viewers, so I try to do one every now ant then. As to your question, I am using a total of 432 pixels on the stairs. And I always use a high estimate of 0.060 amps per pixel for WS2812b, based on full brightness white when all pixels are lit (which agrees with your 0.3W). In this case that is 432 x 0.060 = 25.92 amps. While it is true that for most effects, the true amps will be significantly less. But I always overestimate and round up. I could have easily used a 30 amp in this case. Odds are, I either already had a 40 amp on hand (I keep a variety "in stock") or wasn't sure exactly how many pixels I would end up using during the final build so I bought a supply that I knew would be enough In most of my LED projects, the power supply is substantially larger than truly needed. But as I've mentioned, I would a much rather have the available power and not needed it as opposed to either having to artificially dim the potential brightness or max out (and overheat) my power supply. That's at least the approach I always take. But you are 100% correct... a 30A/150W supply would have been perfectly fine for this particular install, with plenty of buffer to spare. Thanks again for watching. To be honest, I love Home Assistant and automations and that is probably my best skill set. But I also have over 2 dozen WLED installs now... and LED videos definitely get more views than watching me write a YAML automation! But don't hesitate to reach out if I can help out with Home Assistant (or any of the other projects that I've done). It's nice to virtually meet you!
Do you have any automation examples for restoring WLED to a previous running “preset” if you change the light based upon a trigger. Example, say your stairs are running a nice holiday theme you like and Dim, so the wife comes to the top of the stairs and maybe you want to light the path for the time it takes to traverse the stairs and then go back to the previous running scene. I am new to helpers and creating my own custom stuff but I imagine I want to write something that looks at the Wled light to see if it is running and store that setting somehow in a helper? Perhaps a scene? My use case is my breezeway and garage doors will be displaying themed lights at night and I want to detect motion off my doorbell camera and have the LEDs go solid white for the time it takes to enter either of the doors. Then of course restore the lights to the previous scene/playlist etc? Do you have a blog or video? My quick search didn’t show anything but I am not so used to fit hub and I did lol there too. How would you go about this?
There are a lot of ways to tackle this... more than I can really cover here in the comments. But one way would be to store your holiday theme in a a WLED preset. When the PIR is triggered to turn on the lights (e.g. "light the path"), you'd run an effect (or preset) just like is currently done in the video. But instead of turning the lights off with the other sensor (or when the lights time out), you instead call for the WLED preset... which would turn the lights back to the previous "holiday theme". You could probably also, as you mentioned, store the current state of WLED (effect, preset, etc.) in helper(s) when the motion detector is tripped, and then set the WLED state back again when the lights would normally be set to 'off'... e.g. call the WLED light.turn_on and pass back the parameters stored in the helper(s). Depending upon the complexity here, it may or may not be possible with the automation UI and it might require YAML (or YAML within the UI). I haven't tried this (yet), but I can envision how I'd write it. Those are just two ways that pop into mind to accomplish what you are describing. I'm sure there are others.
@@ResinChemTech thanks for this advice and it helps me in several ways. I did think of the preset and do have one for the light the path” as well as a scene in HA. So your first suggestion is good for use newer folks but I would be limited a bit and the joy of HA is the power. So, I am still new to WLED and a practicing apprentice. I am pretty much using your designs exactly. I might lose some of the fascination I currently have but I enjoy picking a different scheme each night and not just one of the 5 presets I have In WLED. I think you see this points me to the direction of capturing the scene if the light is on. I just need to learn more about helpers and I see people creating sensors in Yaml which to me seem like sort of a helper. Pardon my ignorance as I am still only a few months into HA. I just wonder if I need to make a sensor in Yaml to detect if the LED is on. So then in my automation I can look for this “state”? I guess I had hoped you might’ve done something similar on your stairs and I could see your automation Yaml somewhere. Honestly, I love working with automations as much as I love tinkering! So I look forward to the challenges. Thanks again for you help!
Actually, you don't need to create a sensor for the state of WLED... it's already there in Home Assistant. You can trigger an automation on the state change of any entity, including lights. So, you'd use a trigger on the light state going from off to on (or vice versa). It might be helpful (if you haven't already) to peak at the documentation for Home Assistant WLED ( www.home-assistant.io/integrations/wled/ ) as it gives some examples. Again, I'd also be happy to provide you some examples or sample YAML code if you like via email or Discord. You should have my email now in a response I sent a few days ago to your comment under my Livestream #2 video. It's no problem if you want to reach out via email. It's much easier to provide examples and more info via email as I'm limited as to what I can provide here in the comments.
I have the lights all connected on the stairs and got both PIR sensors hooked up and put the file in my automations file then restarted home assistant I can see the automations when I go into configuration then automation. but I can not get it to turn on with the PIR sensors. if I go into automations and hit RUN ACTIONS I can get it to turn on and off but that's it. I could really use your help
I'll be glad to try to help out as best I can. First off, did you define your PIR sensors in ESPHome? It sounds like the actions work fine, but the automation trigger, based on the PIR sensors is not firing. It could also be a missing or misnamed helper (e.g. timer, input_boolean, etc. in the conditions of the automation that is causing the automation to fail and not fire the actions. Do you see anything in the Configuration -> Logs that looks like an error related to the automation? If you like, please feel free to email me at resinchemtech.diy@gmail.com as it might be easier to try to resolve via email than here in the comments (I might not be able to respond until tomorrow... as it's getting a little late where I am!).
If you live near a college or a community with some sort of maker space, you can sometimes get them to print parts for you at a very low cost. If that isn't feasible, I recommend small electronic project boxes that you can find on Amazon or elsewhere. This is what I used before I had a 3D printer. You can take these small project boxes and drill holes or otherwise modify to meet your needs. You can also be creative and use all sorts of things around the house... like a toilet paper tube to restrict the angle detection of a motion detector, etc.
Yes, I believe there is one now (github.com/Aircoookie/WLED/tree/master/usermods/Animated_Staircase). I don't think it existed when I originally built mine. It is a little more complex as you have to be able to compile your own version of WLED, send HTTP/API commands, etc. and I think it is designed for lights running under each tread as opposed to up the stringers. I've glanced at it, but not in any real detail. But like most DIY projects, there are always multiple ways to accomplish the same thing. Thanks for watching and recommending an alternative.
@@ResinChemTech you're right, they are for each tread and yes compiling can be pretty intimidating. Great project! Gave me an idea for my father in law...
I think the actual effect I used at that point in the video was called Fireworks 1D. It is one of over 100 different effects provided by WLED. I didn't have to do anything other than select it in the WLED interface!
I don't believe so... not in it's current state. I don't think either WLED (light control) or ESPHome (motion detection) have any integrations directly with Google Home. I *can* control the lights by voice via Google (turn on/off), but that is technically via the integration with Home Assistant and not the LED controller or motion detectors themselves. However, if you are looking for more basic version that would just turn the LEDs on/off with motion (and without needing Home Assistant or a smart hub), I'll be releasing a new video in a few days that shows how to build a controller to do just that.
Yeah... I'm very familiar with Paul and his channel. While I don't always agree 100% with some of his ideas, I will admit he is always entertaining and often makes me laugh out loud as well. I know exactly what you are talking about with Home Assistant... and I sometimes have difficulties restraining myself every time I utter "zigbee"!
It’s all well and good until your ghosts walk up and down the stairs at night
🤣🤣🤣
Tell me about it I'll shit myself , it's real badass but no thanks
Bruhhh im dead… as a Ghost lol
So funny and true
Ghosts are sort of invisible so they won't trip the sensor so you're good to go
Im sure it has been said already but this was excellent! Very creative and it looks amazing. Like a "grand entrance" sort of feel. Well done.
Thanks.... even if it has been said before, I don't mind hearing it again!
Thanks for taking time to comment. I really do appreciate it!
All it needs is it to play the song "you light up my life" every time they come on.
people like you keep the world running! great job man
Amazing! Gonna make one for my future house !
Mitch? Holy crap... I haven't seen you since I left Austin!
I have found that 3m command strips are excellent for mounting those kinds of channels without using screws.
Absolutely... and a good suggestion for anyone that doesn't want even the small screw holes. I tried a small screw in an inconspicuous location and felt it was acceptable in my case. And I did like the added ability to easily remove a section of the rail from the clips in the event that I needed to make a repair (fortunately hasn't happened yet). But you could absolutely use command strips or even other double-sided tape as long is it wouldn't mar the finish upon removal. Thanks for watching and passing on the suggestion!
Cleansing the surface and using 3m primer is a game changer for that adhesive backing
omg i just imagined this thing detecting motion in the middle of the night when no one seems to be there, slowly walking down ..... got goosebumps now and dont want this anymore xD
I'm just two minutes into this video And I love it already
This has to be the coolest thing since star wars! Great job buddy
Thanks! While it may seem a bit 'over the top', they actually are nice when we turn the main lights off to watch TV, as they provide plenty of light to go up and down the stairs without turning on the overhead lights. They aren't for everybody... but we like them!
Thanks for watching... and taking the time to leave a comment.
@@ResinChemTech u shud definitely market it if u can, its super cool
This would be a nice feature to a drive way...
That is an interesting idea, and it could be adapted from the stairs fairly easily. Of course, everything would have to be weatherproofed, but I could even see combining it with a distance sensor (like I did in my parking assistant vid) and have the lights indicate when the car is parked in the desired position.
Thanks for the idea... might be worth investigating at some point.
Sir you are my hero. I’ve been wanting to do something like this for years. Thanks for the video I liked and subscribed. Fellow Indy neighbor here also.
Thanks! Just curious... are you a home automation/Home Assistant user? Just before the pandemic hit, I was looking for other Home Assistant/automation users in the Indy/central IN area to judge interest in some sort of users group around Home Assistant and/or automation. I had to put that on pause... so I went out and created a blog and RUclips channel instead! But the idea has hung around in my head... if we ever get back to "normal" some day! Let me know if you decide to tackle this project (or any others) and run into any questions.
Thanks again for the kind words... and the sub!
@@ResinChemTech no sir I’m neither home automation or assistant user. I’m a Hvac tech but I do a lot of diy to my home and always wanted to do this to my stairs but never really seen anything I like until your channel popped up.
Just as an FYI... I do have another video, if you haven't seen it, with basically the same setup but doesn't require Home Assistant, automation or any other hub: ruclips.net/video/b4s_VEtVWY4/видео.html
Of course, it doesn't have all the effects and options that the "full" version has, but it is standalone and does offer a way to recreate the stair lighting system without the whole Home Assistant/automation code portion. I did this version by request for folks that don't have Home Assistant or any sort of home automation hub.
@@ResinChemTech yes sir I just looked at it. I think I like that one
Neat! I may implement this on our stairs. I'm already familiar with all the pieces and am running HA, so it should be a quick weekend project.
Great! Let me know how it goes. If you are going to use my YAML, just assure you grab the right version of the Gist file as recent changes in HA and WLED broke the older version. If you are comfortable with YAML, I'm sure you'll have no problems but it seems that this is where most folks have reached out to me with issues... integrating my YAML automations into their particular HA instance.
Don't hesitate to reach out if you do run into any questions or problems... and good luck with your project!
@@ResinChemTech Will do! I've ordered some stuff to start the work. Primarily the channel, but also the PIR sensors and some D1s (I think I'm also nearly out of D1s - I've mostly been using ESP32 and ESP32 D1 Mini's of late, but the ESP8266s are plenty for this project). I have an extra LED strip so I'll start with one side to verify I like the channel I've chosen.
I imagine I'll just create my own HA automations so they make the most sense to me - I have at least 15 or 20 that I've written so far for lots of little things around the house that are motion or time or location dependent. I've got a few ESPHome devices already and I've even written WLED plugins, so I should be good with those. I just hadn't thought about putting the strips down the side (duh!) or lighting two strips in parallel from one data line - that works well?
Some of my WLED projects... I made this for our 25th anniversary (3d printed body, designed and printed by me, uses 3mm fiber optics, runs WLED) ruclips.net/video/hsc0FMRmU38/видео.html . I made this lamp for my grandson's birthday, the video shows off the plugins I made for WLED to provide on-board UI ruclips.net/video/tITQY80rIOA/видео.html .
Sounds like you have plenty of experience with HA and WLED, so I'm sure you'll figure that part out. Splitting the data signal worked out just fine and hasn't caused me any issues. I honestly didn't know at the very start if that would work, but I didn't want two separate controllers (knowing they'd never actually truly stay in-sync.. even if I used the WLED syncing feature). But with the single signal line.. and with the same number of pixels on both sides, they are perfectly in sync for all effects.
I did have to experiment with various motion detectors. I originally tried a couple of Zigbee versions (thinking that wireless would save me from running the extra USB cable), but everything else I tried had too long of a cool down period... up to 45 seconds in some case. The ones I ended up selecting had the shortest cooldown I could find... around 5 seconds.... but it did mean I had to run USB power to the one at the top. But as I showed in the video, using the flat cable pretty much makes it hidden.
Again, good luck and drop me a line when you get it done!
@@ResinChemTech Project completed yesterday. ruclips.net/video/DaU0u5YZguc/видео.html for a video. The parts I used for the project (along with links) are all in my video description. Thanks for the inspiration to finally install stair lights (I'd been considering it for a year). The missus loves them.
Omfg I need this!!!! I can just picture my landlord now as I slowly walk down the stairs with these lights. Holy shit!!!!! Yes I MUST have these!!!
SPOT ON......TRUE INNOVATION ....................AMERICAN INGENUITY AT ITS' FINEST! ! !
I clicked on like and subscribe the moment I realised you are making all the needed information available for free!
Thank you!!! 👍
PS: I am not planning to make use of any of the information available 😇🤪
Thanks! You never know... and you might be surprised! I never thought I'd be as involved in smart home tech and automation like I am now. But then you see something on RUclips and think "I could really use something like that to solve a problem I have in my house". One thing leads to another and before you know it, you have over 100 "smart" devices installed!
But even if you don't go down that route, I appreciate the time you took to watch and comment! Thanks again!
It's like walking off a flying saucer in the middle of the night!
OMG! “I’ll build a staircase to paradise with a new step everyday”
Very nice and straight forward. Most stair lighting has loghts going horizontal across each stair. I like the simplicity of your approach.
Thanks! I try to do projects that are not impossible to recreate or require a lot of specialized equipment... and that can be removed without having to do major restoration work! As I mention in a couple of videos, we will likely sell our house in a few years and most of this smart home tech will have to come back out unless the new owners want to keep some/all of it. I like some of the other videos with the lights across the treads, but they are much more complicated and require construction to hide wires, etc. Thanks for watching and taking time to comment!
That looks cool. Thanks for sharing this brilliant idea.
Thanks. Glad you found it interesting. It can be a bit complicated and a lot of folks may not have Home Assistant or another compatible automation system, but I followed this up with a similar system that is a bit easier to configure and works standalone... without the need for Home Assistant or any other sort of hub.
Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment!
Like the idea. Just wish the install was cleaner. Any ideas on how to hide the stuff?
That all depends on your tolerance level for making modifications to things like the stair stringers, drywall, carpet, etc. I think the 'ugliest' part of this install is the wiring that has to run under the first tread lip to the opposite side stringer for the second side lights. It really isn't as noticeable as it appears in the video when standing and with the similarly colored Velcro holding it in place. I "could" have cut the carpet, ran the wiring underneath and then glued the carpet back in place. But that wasn't a modification that I was willing to make as my goal was to be able to remove the entire system without the need to make any repairs.
There are a lot of other videos out there on making a stair lighting system similar to this... but with pretty substantial 'construction' or changes to the existing stairs. My goal here was to create something that wouldn't require any of that and could easily be removed.... with the downside of the exposed wiring. But you could definitely make this install 'neater' if you are willing to make some structural changes.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) we have a newly laid hardwood floor staircase so it would be hard to hide the wiring. Need an alternative.
Great job sir; but why we dont use only one programmable esp and attach all inputs and outputs to it then code it to do the task ?!
Primarily because the light controller is running WLED firmware. This provides over a hundred different effects... and not something I would want to rewrite or code myself. The sensors, on the other hand, are running ESPHome... same deal. Both integrate nicely into Home Assistant... which handles all the automation processes.
Obviously, you cannot put two different firmware versions (WLED and ESPHome) on a single controller. I do have a standalone version that uses a single controller ( ruclips.net/video/b4s_VEtVWY4/видео.html ) for both the lights and the sensors, written with Arduino code. However, it does not have anywhere near the features or number of effects of WLED. No way that I wanted to try to recreate my own version of that great firmware.
But in a nutshell, that's why more than one controller is used. It also simplifies the wiring that needs to run between the controller and sensors, since the sensors only need power and not an additional data line.
Looks cool, however really needs a little bit of modification IMO to make things look very nice. I'd hate to have any visible wires at all personally
I hear ya... and I don't disagree! But my goal with all my smart home tech is to avoid making major modifications since we will likely sell in a few years and all the tech has to come back out. I don't want to be faced with making major repairs when things are removed. Completely hiding the wiring would have required drilling or routing the stringers, drilling through drywall, etc. I agree it would have made a more attractive install... but at the expense of making alterations to the stairs themselves.
Thanks for your feedback!
@@ResinChemTech My view is almost entirely the opposite. I'd probably leave all the tech in for increasing the perceived value of the house.
I bought a fixer upper house though from 1948, tore down all exterior walls to add insulation, so I don't mind if I make permanent changes as long as it looks good and adds charm to the house long-term.
I can tell you know what you are talking about though, can only assume you are some level of an electrical engineer or just a tech enthusiast.
EDIT: Should of read your shirt, clearly says Cyber Security lol. I'm a DevOps engineer personally.
..... excellent Video. I've *GOTTA* try this.
Thanks! Give it a shot... it's really a pretty easy project to build.
If I could hide a big power supply I'd do this in a heart beat. I've currently got a stairs light, that is visible from the main room that is distracting, I just don't have a good power\hide option.
If we had stairs I’d do this just for that preview 😂👍
Well, I know that some folks have contacted me and let me know that they have taken this same system and installed it along the baseboards of a long hallway to provide lighting at night when going to the bathroom or kitchen. So, I guess you don't technically need to have stairs to install something like this!
Just a thought... thanks for watching and taking time to leave a comment!
Thanks good idea - yes definitely need it for our hallway - will prevent the kids from leaving all the overhead lights on all the time 😂👍
You are amazing ,a very nice job indeed , I’ve nearly finished this project on my stairs too,I was wondering if It’s possible to operate this from a 5inch screen instead of my phone, if so could someone please help,many thanks Paul.
Wow, thanks! When you say 'operate this' are you talking about WLED... or Home Assistant, or what? Either way, both WLED and Home Assistant have mobile apps that could be installed on a small tablet (Android and/or iOS). Of course, they both also work in a browser if your display has that.
So, I'm happy to try to help, but I guess I need to know what it is that you'd like to control (e.g. WLED effects?) and what type of 5" screen you are talking about... and what are its capabilities/operating system?
Thank you for your reply and time,any suggestions on which screen to get?I will be installing home assistance ,I’m building your controller but got 12V strip lights, dose this alter the build of this controller please,many thanks for your help and time, many thanks Paul from the UK.
Just about any tablet will work as long as it has a web browser. I am using a couple of older Samsung tablets in different places in the house, but to be honest, Home Assistant handles most automations (like the stair lights) without any interaction, and many of the other things we interact using voice control with Google Home via Home Assistant.
As far as the 12V LED strips, you will obviously need to step that voltage down to 5V for the controller via a buck converter or other means (the D1 Mini will go "poof" if you try to feed it 12V). If you use separate power sources for the LEDs and the controller, then you must have a common ground between the controller and the LED strip or things won't function normally. Otherwise, as long as you feed 5V to the controller, the build is the same.
Hope that helps! Good luck with the project (and Home Assistant... I love what it can do!). Feel free to reach out again if you run into additional questions or problems.
Thats actually pretty cool looking.. brightness could be lowered a lil bit though..
I simply use a USB mini PIR sensor and USB LED strips for the living room and bathroom, for the stairs i use a motion light i modified powered by 18650s or a USB power bank to recharge the batteries.
Thanks! I think it looks a little brighter than it actually is because LEDs simply "overwhelm" the camera... but the brightness is controllable via WLED. I'd be interested in your battery-operated versions. Someone else was just asking about that a few comments ago. I tried a short 20-pixel LED strip in a closet, activated by a door sensor powered by a USB power bank (12,500 mAh I think) and could never get more than a couple of days before needing to recharge. Probably due to the constant power draw from the microcontroller, but using an ESP32 with deep sleep took too long to wake up and respond when the door opened. I just haven't had any luck with battery-powered LED projects.... but I'm not saying it can't be done!
@@ResinChemTech GE Wireless Motion-Sensing Moveable LED Light Bar (Walmart) is the style im currently using but any similar style could be modified in the same way. i use a TP4056 module, i have it outside of the unit as how it looks doesnt bother me, the 18650s (2) sit nicely on the back of it. When the battery voltage gets low the Light itself blinks a red LED as an indicator, but instead of waiting for it to blink i just click the power bank every now and then to charge it back up.
I can go a month or so before it naturally needs to be recharged, if you have it in a closet then it should last even longer, assuming you use decent 18650s with low self discharge, i use the WESTINGHOUSE 2000mAh 18650s that you can find in store, the Hyper Tough batteries also sold in store do the job also, but the WH ones are better.
Hope this helps :)
Oh my GOD! WOW!!!
Very cool effects. Thanks for the idea
You are more than welcome! I wish I could take credit for the effects, but they are part of the WLED firmware that I used. The effects are actually much nicer than in the video, but it is really difficult to film LEDs as they tend to overwhelm the camera (well, at least with the equipment I'm using).
Thanks for watching and taking time to comment.
I mean I love it, I want it, can you make one for me as a kit , I don't code can't code so I can't make them do the cool things , but I can install and make the wires disappear, I've been looking for this but have no way of getting them, I have a building co and would like to start using this basically everywhere, so please help
Unfortunately I don't have the time or resources to build, ship, charge, etc. for any sort of stair kits. I try to design my videos for the DIY crowd. Note that this particular video shows an installation that requires the end user to have Home Assistant. If you are building for others, there is a very high chance that they may not have (or want to deal with) the Home Assistant automation system. However, I have created a version that works without Home Assistant and doesn't require any other automation system. It is a bit more basic in terms of number of effects and features, but the physical build is nearly identical and it still functions (via motion) in much the same way. You may want to take a look at this video and see if it might be a better fit in your situation: ruclips.net/video/b4s_VEtVWY4/видео.html
WOW!!! This is really nice.
Okay, that is cool AF!!!!!! Awesome job!!!!!
That ghost in the beginning starting to walk down the stairs but then realizing his mortal roommate is trying to film a video
Paint those stringers white and 🤌
I would also need to hide all that wiring to meet the spouse approval factor. Fantastic project.
Well... as the title of the video states, my goal was to do this "without staircase modification". I explain the reason why in one of my recent videos ( ruclips.net/video/rKAZxDtShCo/видео.html ). Naturally, the wires could be much better hidden if you are willing to drill into the staircase, pull carpet or cut into drywall. My goal was to install this system without making any changes... and so that the system could be removed in just a few minutes and you'd never know it was there.
But I fully understand the WAF! Luckily for me, mine is pretty lenient when it comes to the basement "man cave". Now, if I wanted to install this on our main stair case to the second floor... that would be a totally different situation (and don't think I haven't considered it... but that would have a very, very low WAF!)
Hi, could you share the code Pl. I would like to build one for my house staircase.
Thanks
Thank you for the informative and thorough explanation. I would like to do similar outside on my pathway from the street to the house. It is going to be 40ft long, 38 inches wide, stamped concrete with led embedded on the top of the concrete(facing the sky, not the sides) along the length. Also I would like to have motion sensors every 24 inches or so, so when someone steps in the middle of the pathway still to lit. Could you please answer several questions:
1. Can I use it without Home assistant or any other platform/server because this is a foreign language for me? If it is absolutely necessary I would educate myself, but prefer not to.
2. Can I install multiple motion sensors and also are you familiar with any waterproof that can face up since I do not want to install anything on the side and higher than the walkway so I would not trip, able to mow etc
Thank you in advance for your help.
There's a lot to cover with something like that... more than I can cover here in the comments, but I'll address a few basic items:
With an install that big (and that many LEDs), you'd probably need to use an ESP32 instead of an ESP8266. You would also need a very substantial power supply, along with power injection along the LED strips. Naturally, all of this would have to be waterproof.
I do have an LED controller that works with motion detectors and doesn't require Home Assistant (or any other system). You can see a video of that here: ruclips.net/video/b4s_VEtVWY4/видео.html But it currently only supports a maximum of 2 motion detectors, so you'd have to modify the code to work with more than that.
Finally, there are commercial outdoor motion detectors, but I don't know of anything like you describe. You'd likely have to build something custom and figure out how to power it and make it waterproof.
It sounds like a neat project, but it is also a pretty complicated one to build yourself. I hope I've provided at least a little helpful information to give you some things to consider.
Got these in thr house i just bought! Drove me nuts so i disconnected them!!
Wow, I'd buy a kit from you.
Thanks. I've had other ask about the possibility of having me building this for them. In all honesty, even if I had time to assembly kits (and all the other work related to shipping, logistics, etc), everyone's stairs would be different enough in terms of length, power outlets locations, etc. that any sort of kit would still involve a lot of DIY for installation anyway (such as cutting rails to length, installing the LED strips, etc.).
The only thing a kit might provide would be a pre-assembled controller with WLED installed. But that already exists, if you are interested. Quindor, over at QuinLED already sells a pre-build controller (with logic level shifter, fuse protection, etc): quinled.info/pre-assembled-quinled-dig-uno/
This is amazing. 👏
May I ask if you have a video of you connecting all of this up? On to the boards?
You might take a look at the written version of this project. It has wiring diagrams and shows how all the different components and parts are wired together: resinchemtech.blogspot.com/2021/07/simple-motion-activated-led-stair.html
If you have any particular questions after taking a look at that, don't hesitate to reach back out and ask.
Built one of those in 05. Was so cool at the time .
You should build the system and sell it if you do please let me know
Awesome ..👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼thanks for sharing 🙏🏻
Thanks.... and you are more than welcome. I hope you found something helpful or useful in the video.
Btw you don't need the logic level shift with the ws2812bs, they will accept a digital signal all the way down to 1.7 volts, so 3.3 is more than adequate, if you don't believe me check the datasheet for the ws2812b itself, it'll say the same thing
You may be correct, but my references say: "The datasheet tells us that a logic high input will be detected at a minimum voltage of 0.7 * Vcc. If you’re running the LED at 5V, this means 5 V * 0.7 = 3.5 V will be needed for the WS2812 to detect a ‘1’ on the data line." Here is the data sheet I am referencing (cdn-shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/WS2812B.pdf) and you can see that it also notes a working voltage starting at 3.5V. While you can sometimes get away with 3.3V (or even just a bit lower), there can be signal instability that might cause random issues. Add in the fact that I sometimes place my controller a meter or more away from the first pixel and voltage drop from just the wire resistance itself is enough to cause intermittent problems. In my opinion, it is well worth the $1 cost of the logic level shifter (or even a sacrificial pixel) to boost the signal to 5V. This allows plenty of headspace for any voltage drop due to the wiring run between the controller and LED strip. Nearly all references that I see online (or from others) recommend use of a voltage shifter or sacrificial pixel. But like all DIY projects, there are many possibilities and if you can get a reliable signal without the shifter, then by all means feel free to omit it.
Very good, that's almost exactly how I want to do it. Is it possible to make it work regardless if the Home Assistant is not working/not available? Can i use with WLED FW, 2 motion sensors and possibly a lux sensor? I would like it can work on its own, but it can also be controlled via the WLED app/Home Assistant. Can this be solved? Can you make a video and/or description about this?
Well.. if you are using WLED (instead of the standalone option), then WLED has to be able to handle all of the automations if Home Assistant isn't available. While it might be possible to use a motion sensor and/or a lux sensor with the WLED controller for some basic features like turning on the lights, it doesn't have the automation engine to do the more advanced options... like a timer to turn the lights off after a set time, use two sensors in conjunction, etc. The standalone version builds in this automation engine, but doesn't have all the WLED features.
So, it's more or less picking one over the other. You can use WLED, but then need a separate automation platform (like Home Assistant, NodeRed, etc.)... or you can build the automations into custom firmware (standalone), but then you cannot install both this custom firmware and WLED on the same controller.
There are a number of custom user modifications available for WLED. There might be something that that you could add as custom mod to WLED that would give you close to what you want. But I haven't tried or tested any of these. You can review the list of user contributions here: github.com/Aircoookie/WLED/tree/main/usermods
Good day to you sir, thank you some much for sharing your knowledge. I have been wanting to do this for a while now and I have all the components, and I'm ready to start assembling it.
I'm waiting on a new led strip so that I can add lights to both sides. I am still having a bit of brain block, trying to understand how the two ESPHome D1 minis talk to the WLED controller..
I assume you are referring to the D1 Minis that are used for the motion detection? Home Assistant and Home Assistant automations are how the devices 'talk'. The Home Assistant automation uses the motion from the motion sensors as a trigger to then turn on the LEDs via the LED controller. The latter part of the video covers that and you can find links to the entire Home Assistant automation in the video description.
I hope that helps. This particular version does require Home Assistant or a similar home automation platform to work and to allow those components to 'talk' to each other.
@@ResinChemTech thank you for the quick response, I appreciate it. Does this section need to be the same on both of the D1 minis that are running ESPHOME?
binary_sensor:
- name: "Breakbeam Sensor" == ???
id: breakbeam_sensor
platform: template
device_class: motion
Are you using the new ToF sensors that I showed in this video ( ruclips.net/video/ZRb_wpJo1AM/видео.html ) as that is the ESPHome code for these types of sensors. If you are using the PIR sensors as shown in _this_ video, then you need to use the ESPHome code from the Github repository that does NOT have _tof in the file name. The Github repo has example ESPHome for both, the ToF sensors (with _tof in the name) and the PIR sensors (without _tof in the name).
Thank You for the video . I followed step by step and it's up and running on my stairs. Question when walking past the first sensor it detects my first leg and turns on the lights but sometimes it detects my trailing leg and and turns off the lights . Is there any adjustments that I could make to fix this issue ?
You are using the ToF sensors and not the PIR sensors, correct? I had the same issue initially because the ToF sensors react so quickly. There are two things you can do, and it might be a combination of both that works out the best in your situation.
First, you can shorten the 'trip' distance of the sensor in ESPHome to cover about 1/2 - 3/4 the width of the stairs. That way one leg would trip the sensor but the second leg would be outside that range and wouldn't trip. But this only works reliably if you always tend to step on the first step with the leg nearest the sensor.
What worked best for me was to add a "for" clause to both the on and off automations in Home Assistant. In other words, you have an automation for both the the top and bottom sensor with a trigger that is:
from: 'off'
to: 'on'
You would add a time to that so that the sensor must remain in that state for a minimum amount of time. For me, that was around 250 ms. So you just add a "for" statement to the trigger, so it looks like this:
to: 'on'
for:
milliseconds: 250
Repeat this for the other automations that go from "on" to "off" as well, adding the 'for' statement. You may need to adjust the amount of time and/or use this in combination of changing the detection distance. It may take some trial and error, but you should be able to get it dialed in so that your second leg will rarely trip the sensor right after the first leg. Let me know if you have any follow up questions.
Very nice. Do you know of a motion sensor that could be used as a touchless button for something like this? Something where maybe the range is very short, somewhere around 1/2" to trigger it? My idea is to "tap" it with your foot to get it go on.
My first thought is to use an ultrasonic or lidar sensor (like I used in my parking assistant and car detection vid). That way, you'd be measuring distance instead of motion. When something (like your foot) moved in front of the sensor at less than a predetermined distance (say < 2"), that could trigger the lights on/off via Home Assistant. Using this method, someone passing by the sensor at a 'normal' distance would not trigger the lights. I think the challenge here might the the speed of reactivity of the sensor (how quickly it reports a distance change). But it might be worth a shot!
@@ResinChemTech Thanks, yes, that's a direction I was looking at. It might work. I found these just now also and it seems like it might be the answer: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07T91JXHW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
@@ResinChemTech This is interesting too. Looks like what you were talking about and it goes down to 2cm which is the feature I couldn't find in other ultrasonic sensors. I ordered this too and will see what works best. www.amazon.com/dp/B088R3V9X8?psc=1&smid=A2SNA9AH12A511&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp
Great! I haven't worked with either one of those options, but let me know how it works out.
A question for you sir. Does the staircase lighting work as "stand-alone", install-it-and you-are-done? I want to make one for my daughter and she does not have, nor want - Home assistant, ESPhome, or WLED. Once the controllers are flashed, does it work all by itself?
This particular version requires Home Assistant to work. However, I did develop a standalone version that doesn't require Home Assistant (or any other external system). It doesn't have all the effects that WLED has, but it does have the same "chase" lights you see in this video... and a few others (although those effects were added after the video was made). You can see a video of that version here: ruclips.net/video/b4s_VEtVWY4/видео.html
You can also find a lot more detail, along with the current lighting effects in the related blog article and Github repo. Links to those can be found in the video description of the above video.
Should of ran the wires under the carpet I did that once to run a cat5 cable from 1 room to another
Hi sir what are the details to do this and materials, happy to know , thank you
There are additional details in the video description, and you can find a step by step guide, along with the full parts list in the related blog article: resinchemtech.blogspot.com/2021/07/simple-motion-activated-led-stair.html
Hi do you sell the whole kit
Sorry, but I'm not able to build, ship and accept payment for any of my projects at this time. However, if you are interested in a pre-build controller with WLED, you can purchase one from Quindor over at QuinLED: quinled.info/pre-assembled-quinled-dig-uno/
Unfortunately, I do not have time with my current projects to build kits. In addition, each kit would have to be custom made for a particular set of stairs which would make it cost-prohibitive to assemble, ship and sell.
Excellent video, thank you!!
Instead of stairs, I'd like to do under cabinets and shelving on each side of the vent hood - with say 6 different lines (minimum, and short runs) do you think I'd need more than one esp32? I'd ideally tie everything together in the cabinet of the vent hood... conceptually I can't visualize having a single controller
Well, there would be different ways to approach this depending on how you want everything to work and function. Technically, the ESP32 can support up to 10 different channels or pins. It can get tricky in terms of setting those up and the segments to match. You can read more about how that is done on the WLED offical site here: kno.wled.ge/features/multi-strip/
A different option is to use multiple controllers and sync them together. That is how I approached my kitchen cabinets. I have a row of cabinets on each side of the kitchen. I technically have four controllers... two on each side (one for the top of the cabinets and one for the under side). All four controllers are synced. When any controller is set to a color or effect, then the same color/effect is synced to the other 3 controllers. Of course this does require more wiring and a separate power supply for each side of the kitchen.
So there are different ways to approach it... using either a single controller with multiple pins/data outputs on a single ESP32... or multiple controllers that can optionally be synced to act as one.
I hope that helps. Good luck with your project. My wife loves the undercabinet lighting for the additional workspace light.. and I love the ability to use colors for special occasions, entertaining, etc.
@ResinChem Tech Thanks for your quick reply and level of detail in your thoughts. The article was helpful in the idea that any pin can be used on the ESP32. When you say your controllers are synced, is that something you're doing in the WLED UI, or, an automation you're running in HomeAssistant (e.g. trigger: turn on lights at 1700, action: Turn on light 1,2,3,4, etc. with no sec delay built in each)?
I'm using the WLED sync feature. But you could use Home Assistant automations as well. The nice feature about the WLED sync is that any individual controller can temporarily (and easily) be removed from the sync group if you want that segment or strip to be a different color and/or run a different effect. Then when you want, you can easily sync up the controllers again via WLED (or HA automation). So, for example, if your controllers are normally synced, but you want to create a special theme night, you can 'unsync' the controllers and set some of the LEDs to pink and another set to blue. Then when ready to return to 'normal' operation, just enable the sync on the controllers again.
@@ResinChemTech Thank you!! Much appreciated!!
Couldn't you have mounted the motion sensor cable inside the channel too? That way it is completely hidden.
That's a good idea... and actually I wanted to do that. Unfortunately, the flat cable was just slightly too wide to fit inside the aluminum channel "vertically" without interfering with the diffuser. Turning the cable "horizontally", made it visible as it overlapped the LEDs. In theory, I could have ran the cable under the double-sided tape before putting that down, but that would have resulted in a "hump" and potentially affected the adhesion of the strips to the tape.. and the tape to the channel. In all honesty, I can't see the USB cable at all unless I actually lay down on the stairs and look for it. But with all DIY projects, there are multiple ways. I appreciate the suggestion and it might give someone else an idea of how they might build a similar project.
This is incredible!
Hi, thank you for the video. I am new for this, I was confused on the diagram system configuration. How is the two sensors (up and down stair) communicated with the WLED controller. Best regards, TC
The motion detectors, and the WLED controller, are integrated into Home Assistant. Home Assistant takes the change in the motion detector and turns the LEDs on or off, and sets the proper effect up or down depending on which motion detector fired. This particular system will not work without Home Assistant.
However, if you are not a Home Assistant user, I did create another version (that has a few less features and effects, but works basically just the same). This version works 'standalone' and does not require Home Assistant or any other external system. You can see a video of that system here: ruclips.net/video/b4s_VEtVWY4/видео.html
@@ResinChemTech Thank you so much for quick response. Can you post your video about the Home Assistant ? Thanks a lot for your help.
While I utilize Home Assistant in a lot of my video projects, I don't have a video specifically on setting up and using Home Assistant. But there are a ton of videos on RUclips about the subject... just search "Home Assistant". I do have a little more information on the automations I use in Home Assistant in my related blog article... and copies of my Home Assistant automation code can be found in the related Github repo (links to both are in the video description of this video). However, this is just the automation code used in Home Assistant... not information on how to install and setup Home Assistant itself.
Home Assistant is a great home automation platform that allows you to bring thousands of devices together under one application and create nice dashboards, create advanced automations, etc. However, it isn't necessarily a quick and easy undertaking. If you have other smart devices, then Home Assistant might be a good choice. But I don't think I'd install Home Assistant just for these stair lights. In that case, you'd be better off with the standalone version that I shared in my previous comment.
I wonder if you could ditch the PIR sensors and use a mm wave radar sensor instead as you can measure distance to target so light the correct steps in real-time based on where someone is standing e.g of they change direction on the stairs
Yeah... as I mentioned in this video's description, I replaced those PIR sensors with ToF sensors... and did a follow up video ( ruclips.net/video/ZRb_wpJo1AM/видео.html ). The ToF sensors rely on distance (and have a narrower FOV), but the distance is converted to a boolean in ESPHome so that Home Assistant logs aren't flooded with continuous distance measurements. The ToF sensors have been much better than the original PIR sensors... especially for my particular staircase design and opening at the botton.
There’s a ghost walking up and down. I guess they approve.
DAYUM good stuff homie
I'm so excited about this!! I need this for my scary basement stairs
THANK YOU FOR THIS!!!
Do you think that trying this with a Dig-Uno or a Dig-Quad would simplify or complicate the setup?
The DigUno would basically just replace the WLED controller that I built, so it would simplify from the fact that you wouldn't have to build the controller yourself. Everything else would remain basically the same. However, the next version of WLED (currently in beta) is slated to add support for multiple buttons. With that (on either the home built controller or the DigUno), it *might* be possible to eliminate the two D1 minis that are used for the motion detection and wire the motion detectors directly the WLED controller. I won't know the answer to that until I get a chance to test it and determine the changes needed to the automation.
How long do you think the power courd from the power supply to the led strip could be before it would be too long? 20Ft?
Just the power or the data? For the power, as long as you are using adequate gauge wire, 20 feet should be OK. Of course, the longer the run, the bigger the voltage drop, and the lower the starting voltage will be and that will increase the possibility that you will need to do power injection depending on the number of your LEDs.
As always, I recommend that you try it first... on the bench or even just laying everything out on the floor somewhere. It there are problems, it will be much easier to identity and address them before you complete the final installation.
@@ResinChemTech i was thinking power but you answered that question. My goal is to have the wled board and power supply hidden away about 20ft away. I suppose the board could be closer and i could intergrate a motion sensor in the same unit like you did. Im trying to hide unsightly wires and power supplys to win the wifes approval. by putting the power supply far away it would allow me to tuck the wires under the trim on the way to my stairs.
Understood! The WAF is important and shouldn't be overlooked! I think if you can use the largest gauge that is practical for the power (and you can still hide it) the better off you will be. And for the controller, it's also probably fine located a distance away as long as you use some sort of logic level shifter (the I2C compatible style, the SN74ACHT125N style, or even a sacrificial pixel). Again, a bench test can be very helpful. Lights that are fading from white to pink or red (and dimming or flickering at the end of the strip) are a sure sign of a voltage drop issue, and LEDs that just misbehave in general, flickering all along the strip or showing the wrong colors/patterns are a sign of a poor or weak data signal.
Good luck with your project... and a high WAF!
@@ResinChemTech Thank you so much! I’m just now starting to learn how to ise all this stuff and program it! And some of this info isnt easy to find!
What happens if you don't have a 3D printer? Are there commercially available enclosures for the components?
You have a few different options. First, the design files for my enclosures are available on Thingiverse:
Motion Detectors: www.thingiverse.com/thing:4969716
Controller: www.thingiverse.com/thing:4969733
You can take these files and there are a number of online services that will print and ship to you. A cheaper alternative might be if you have a college or maker space in your area that might print them for you.
Or you can find a number of small electronic project boxes on Amazon that you can modify to meet your needs. This is what I used (or whatever I had laying around the house) before I got a 3D printer. I've used everything from candy boxes to empty toilet paper tubes in some of my projects. 3D printed parts are not required to make this project work... they just make things a bit "neater". Technically, you could tape or glue the motion detectors directly to the stairs with no case at all.... or just be creative with what you might find around the house.
@@ResinChemTech Thanks!
Why do the other lights go out when the stair lights come on?
By "other lights", are you referring to the general room lights? If so, they actually aren't changing at all. It's the camera trying to automatically adjust the exposure due to the brightness of the LEDs... LEDs are very hard to film because they tend to overwhelm the camera. So, while it might appear that the room lights are dimming or getting brighter... they actually aren't. They are staying exactly the same. It's the camera that is 'dimming' the exposure.
But let me know if you are talking about something else.
Govee rgbic will do the same with less. 35 bucks in now realizing i have a left over set. Hhmmm i don't have that many steps so I'll double up
Of course you can substitute the LED strips I used. I had the WS2812b strips on hand and used them for other projects. I think some differences here are that the Govee version are 30 pixels/m vs. the 60 pixels/m I used and are 12V instead of 5V. And for automations via Home Assistant, you'd have to add the Govee integration. But like most DIY projects, there are multiple ways to accomplish the same thing. Good luck with your project... and thanks for taking the time to comment.
Is this possible to do without using home assistant?
Not this particular version. But I did develop a bit more basic version that works without Home Assistant (or any other automation hub). You can see that version here: ruclips.net/video/b4s_VEtVWY4/видео.html
Where can we purchase all needed parts
You can find the complete parts list for what I used in my related blog article at: resinchemtech.blogspot.com/2021/07/simple-motion-activated-led-stair.html
Looks very cool :)
Hi,
This is a very useful video. I just have a question and since your more than competent at this, I'm hoping you can answer.
I have five steps from my decking to the garden. I want to put some IP65 Led strips under each step. I need to be motion activated. I can manage that. But my challenge is I want to use a solar power bank and I want to add on a PIR to the lights only come on with motion. Google assistant compatibility would be a luxury if possible
So my question is, is it possible to add on 5 steps with of IP65 RGBW strips to a solar power bank with a PIR? If so, with Google assistant?
Any and all help will be appreciated. Many thanks
Well... anything is possible! I think the challenge here will be the battery power... even with a solar charger. Both the WLED controller and PIR board will constantly draw power, even when the lights are off. You could move up to an ESP32 and use deep sleep to save battery, but the wake-up time (and time to connect to wifi) would make the motion-detection portion nearly useless. I tried the battery concept for small strip of LEDs in a closet (maybe 20 pixels) and the battery/power bank drained in two days, even with limited closet openings.
Google integration is possible if using Home Assistant. There may be other ways. WLED natively supports Amazon Alexa.
Excellent video! It’s motivated me to try this.
I was wondering is there a way to creat a wireless PIR sensor or even button? I was hoping maybe a battery powered separate D1 mini with PIR could link up to and control another D1 mini which is being used as the main WLED driver but is out of sight.
Thanks! Glad it provided you with some motivation to try it yourself!
It is certainly possible to use something wireless for the sensors at the top and bottom of the staircase. I'm not sure that a D1 Mini is the correct choice as it would probably draw too much power and quickly drain a battery (wifi devices are power hungry!). I'd look at maybe something like a Zigbee motion sensor (especially if you already have a Zigbee network). The issue with these, however, is that they generally have long cool down periods (like 30 seconds or more), which could be a challenge in terms of the automation... since the sensor would continue to show motion long after someone has exited the stairs. I believe Aqara has a new motion sensor where you can specify the cooldown, but I haven't tried or tested them. You may also have issues with the wide field of view (FOV) with a PIR sensor like this, depending on your stair configuration. I had this issue at the bottom of my stairs, and just recently released a video where I replaced these PIR sensors with TOF sensors (you can see that vid here: ruclips.net/video/ZRb_wpJo1AM/видео.html ) - but this would also be a wired/D1 Mini solution, although it does work much better than the PIR option.
You could always try a battery-operated D1 Mini... something like a LiPo battery would probably be best... but I know that from my original mailbox solution that used a battery-driven ESP32 (that even when into deep sleep when not in use), I couldn't get more than about a month out of the battery. I suspect an D1 Mini that has to constantly be awake and watch for motion would drain even faster than that... possibly within a week.
If you find a good wireless solution, please pass it along! I'd love to share it with my viewers and provide that option. Also feel free to reach back out if you have any additional questions. Good luck with your project!
@@ResinChemTech yeah looks like your’re completely right. D1 mini approx 40mA draw which will soon take its toll on a battery. I will still look into other options but I’m not hopeful.
I don’t have a zigbee network but assume it’s relatively cheap to set up so could be an option.
Yes I had already seen your video on the PIR upgrade and intended to do that. The only thing with that side of it that I need to do now is work out how to get an ambient light sensor in so that it only come on when below a certain lighting level.
I get I could use another input (probably have to be analogue) and then have a condition based statement saying “if THIS and MOTION then turn light on”.
Did you bother with this yourself or just have them come on in any lighting condition?
****edit***** seen that I would need to create an automation with the trigger as either the upstairs or downstairs motion sensor and then have a condition of lux level below a certain value to achieve only lighting up in the dark.
Slowly getting there.
Just need to make sure that the D1 mini can cope efficiently with the three sensors.
@@ResinChemTech also, thanks for the response! And especially how quickly you got back to me.
I don't use any sort of light sensor for the stairs. They come on all the time unless I toggle the input_boolean to disable the automations. I do, however, lower the brightness of the LEDs if it is after 10 pm and the overhead basement lights are off. I did this just fairly recently as I was getting blinded by the bright LED stair lights after watching TV in a dark basement and then heading up to bed. With no windows in the basement, there isn't any 'ambient' light, other than the overhead recessed lighting... which is also automated in Home Assistant... so, I can use the brightness level setting of the overhead lighting to alter the stair lights.
As far as a light level sensor, of course you can just use a photoresistor. But in my new garage multisensor, I use a photosensitive light module. This uses a photoresistor as well, but had a digital binary sensor that is 'on' or 'off' based on an adjustable light level. They are only about $2 apiece, but easier to use than a photoresistor, analog level and trying to convert that to lux. You can see that in my video on an updated multisensor ( ruclips.net/video/tVTha44i8SI/видео.html ). The D1 Mini won't have a problem dealing with both a motion sensor and a light level sensor. But you are right that motion would serve as the trigger and light level as a condition in your automation.
Let me know if you have additional questions or thought!
Good job !
Please share circuit diagram
You can find the overall wiring diagram in my related blog article:
resinchemtech.blogspot.com/2021/07/simple-motion-activated-led-stair.html
The circuit diagram for the LED controller can be found in this blog article:
resinchemtech.blogspot.com/2021/01/building-your-own-led-light-strip.html
Could this work with Zigbee motion sensors?
Yeah... it could. But the issue I found with many motion detectors, especially the Zigbee ones I have (Aqara and Hue), there is a significant cool down period (up to 45 seconds) before they reset from motion to no motion. It's not that you couldn't deal with that in the automation, but the motion detectors I selected was due to the fact that they had a very short cool down (about 5 seconds). In fact, Travis over at DigiblurDIY did a thorough study of motion detectors and cool down times (ruclips.net/video/3U1fOqkk3Wg/видео.html). It would be up to you to determine if you could live with, or code around, any extended cool down periods for different motion detectors. Actually, you could trigger on anything that works for your install. Someone else even mentioned using an ultrasonic distance sensor as a trigger... or a load cell/pressure plate, etc. Whatever would work for you to trigger the lights to come on and go off could easily be adapted from the way I did it.
I love this project. Kudos! Can share the 3 printer enclosure file with us? I cannot find one that's cover one side like the one you have. Oh, I'm new at 3D printing.
Yep... you can find links to the 3D printed parts (and much more) at the related blog article for this project: resinchemtech.blogspot.com/2021/07/simple-motion-activated-led-stair.html (you'll find the links to the 3D printed parts at the end of the article).
But if you haven't seen it yet, I made an improvement to the sensors for the top and bottom of the stairs since this original video. If you are considering building these stair lights yourself, you may want to take a quick peak at the following video and decide if these new sensors might work better for you as well: ruclips.net/video/ZRb_wpJo1AM/видео.html
Good luck and let me know if you have any other questions!
@@ResinChemTech Thank you kindly! I already watch the improved video a few time. Outstanding!
Great great video! I have the stairs set up the same way but I have it hooked up to my raspberry pi system. Can I just copy paste the code from your description to my raspberry pi and it work the same? The last person who owned the home left it hooked up but it hasn’t worked since I moved in.
Well, there are three parts to the "code". First is WLED, which runs on the ESP8266 controller. Then ESPHome is used on the motion detectors. Finally, there is the automation code, which is in YAML within Home Assistant. You could theoretically run the whole thing on a Pi, but not directly using the code that I used. You'd have to write something that would run on the Pi, detecting the motion via GPIO pins and then sending a signal out to the LED lights. Sorry... but the code I used is pretty much designed for ESP8266 and Home Assistant. But I'm pretty sure you could write everything in something like Python that would replicate what I've done here and run standalone on a Pi.
I think the 'Pi' would not be a good choice because of the high current consumption
Hi. Great job. I'd like get one for my house. Can you make it for sale?
Sorry... I don't offer any of my projects pre-built or for sale. The goal of my channel is to show you how to build your own and I simply do not have time to build, ship and manage the logistics of selling any of my projects.
@ResinChemTech if I build lights and sensors, can you be able to help me with code in my home assistant because I'm new in there and don't know how to make it? Thanks
I'm always happy to answer questions and to try to assist. If you look in the video description for this video, you will find links to a written guide that covers a fair amount of the code and setup, as well as a link to a Github repo that has all the code I used and more information related to how to set this up and use it in Home Assistant.
But if you have read that information and get stuck somewhere, just reach back out and I will do my best to help you out.
@@ResinChemTech thanks
you had me at low cost
That duct tape holding everything together though 👌🏻
I'm sure it's already been asked but what WLED effect is that?
It is the "Wipe" effect, with the reverse flag on for one direction and off for the other direction.
@@ResinChemTech how are you going about turning the reverse flag on and off depending on if your going up or down the stairs?
It's all handled in the Home Assistant automations and determined by which sensor triggers and whether the lights are already on or off. If the bottom motion triggers and the lights are off, they are turned on with the wipe effect and no reverse flag. Similarly, if the top motion sensor is triggered and the lights are off, they are turned on with the reverse flag enabled. If either sensor is tripped and the lights are already on, then they are turned off (that's how the effect is stopped when exiting the stairs).
@@ResinChemTech ahhhh ok. I see the reverse toggle now in my WLED integration.
Nice, now I can see the ghosts walking up and down my stairs
Funny you should say that! At one point in time, the lights would occasionally come on by themselves. Made me think ghosts too. Actually, it was a faulty motion detector... once I replaced that the "ghosts" were exorcised!
Hello, I didn't get your name Saturday during the live stream. I'm Dan a DJ, gadget guy, Creator/Streamer and WLED fanatic. You have a bunch of HA knowledge I didnt even know was possible. Here's my two wonderments after watching this clip. How many leds total are you using. I estimate around 400 for both sides give or take if you are using 60leds/m. If yer using 144/m then disregard the next question. Next question is baffling me ... Why are you using 40amps or 300 and some plus watts when it's not needed. It sounded like these two strips were the only things to be connected. Using my approx 400 estimate, you should be able to power them just fine with a psu that is rated for 150 watts which includes the 20% buffer. If I misunderstood one of the variable or made a mistake, I'm sorry, but the gen rule of thumb with ws2812b leds is each pixel needs 0.3 watt for each to be powered safely. Then the only unknown is how much copper conductor they used in building the strip. Some use far too less and voltage drop is easily seen within the single strip which taught me the cheapest is rarely an acceptable product for me. Again, great to meet you the other day. I'll show you some of my creations as soon as I upload them. I found a translucent water tube that makes a quick diffuser. I just fishtape my strips into the tube and boom. but making a round continuous tube with wiring going in and coming out was tricky and figured out a way, just not a perfect way but it looks great as an overhead general lighting or a music activated light when listening or mixing music.
First... thanks for watching the livestream. I'm not as comfortable doing those, but it is a good way to interact with my viewers, so I try to do one every now ant then.
As to your question, I am using a total of 432 pixels on the stairs. And I always use a high estimate of 0.060 amps per pixel for WS2812b, based on full brightness white when all pixels are lit (which agrees with your 0.3W). In this case that is 432 x 0.060 = 25.92 amps. While it is true that for most effects, the true amps will be significantly less. But I always overestimate and round up. I could have easily used a 30 amp in this case. Odds are, I either already had a 40 amp on hand (I keep a variety "in stock") or wasn't sure exactly how many pixels I would end up using during the final build so I bought a supply that I knew would be enough In most of my LED projects, the power supply is substantially larger than truly needed. But as I've mentioned, I would a much rather have the available power and not needed it as opposed to either having to artificially dim the potential brightness or max out (and overheat) my power supply. That's at least the approach I always take. But you are 100% correct... a 30A/150W supply would have been perfectly fine for this particular install, with plenty of buffer to spare.
Thanks again for watching. To be honest, I love Home Assistant and automations and that is probably my best skill set. But I also have over 2 dozen WLED installs now... and LED videos definitely get more views than watching me write a YAML automation! But don't hesitate to reach out if I can help out with Home Assistant (or any of the other projects that I've done). It's nice to virtually meet you!
Nice but I would just install an overhead light and a 3-way switch.
I LOVE IT !
Thanks! And thanks for taking time to post a comment.
Very well done! Thank you for sharing!
Thanks! I hope you found something useful.
@@ResinChemTech Yes, i like It! I will look at your blog later for more details!
Do you have any automation examples for restoring WLED to a previous running “preset” if you change the light based upon a trigger.
Example, say your stairs are running a nice holiday theme you like and Dim, so the wife comes to the top of the stairs and maybe you want to light the path for the time it takes to traverse the stairs and then go back to the previous running scene.
I am new to helpers and creating my own custom stuff but I imagine I want to write something that looks at the Wled light to see if it is running and store that setting somehow in a helper? Perhaps a scene?
My use case is my breezeway and garage doors will be displaying themed lights at night and I want to detect motion off my doorbell camera and have the LEDs go solid white for the time it takes to enter either of the doors.
Then of course restore the lights to the previous scene/playlist etc?
Do you have a blog or video? My quick search didn’t show anything but I am not so used to fit hub and I did lol there too.
How would you go about this?
There are a lot of ways to tackle this... more than I can really cover here in the comments. But one way would be to store your holiday theme in a a WLED preset. When the PIR is triggered to turn on the lights (e.g. "light the path"), you'd run an effect (or preset) just like is currently done in the video. But instead of turning the lights off with the other sensor (or when the lights time out), you instead call for the WLED preset... which would turn the lights back to the previous "holiday theme".
You could probably also, as you mentioned, store the current state of WLED (effect, preset, etc.) in helper(s) when the motion detector is tripped, and then set the WLED state back again when the lights would normally be set to 'off'... e.g. call the WLED light.turn_on and pass back the parameters stored in the helper(s). Depending upon the complexity here, it may or may not be possible with the automation UI and it might require YAML (or YAML within the UI). I haven't tried this (yet), but I can envision how I'd write it.
Those are just two ways that pop into mind to accomplish what you are describing. I'm sure there are others.
@@ResinChemTech thanks for this advice and it helps me in several ways. I did think of the preset and do have one for the light the path” as well as a scene in HA.
So your first suggestion is good for use newer folks but I would be limited a bit and the joy of HA is the power.
So, I am still new to WLED and a practicing apprentice. I am pretty much using your designs exactly.
I might lose some of the fascination I currently have but I enjoy picking a different scheme each night and not just one of the 5 presets I have In WLED.
I think you see this points me to the direction of capturing the scene if the light is on. I just need to learn more about helpers and I see people creating sensors in Yaml which to me seem like sort of a helper. Pardon my ignorance as I am still only a few months into HA. I just wonder if I need to make a sensor in Yaml to detect if the LED is on. So then in my automation I can look for this “state”?
I guess I had hoped you might’ve done something similar on your stairs and I could see your automation Yaml somewhere.
Honestly, I love working with automations as much as I love tinkering! So I look forward to the challenges.
Thanks again for you help!
Actually, you don't need to create a sensor for the state of WLED... it's already there in Home Assistant. You can trigger an automation on the state change of any entity, including lights. So, you'd use a trigger on the light state going from off to on (or vice versa). It might be helpful (if you haven't already) to peak at the documentation for Home Assistant WLED ( www.home-assistant.io/integrations/wled/ ) as it gives some examples.
Again, I'd also be happy to provide you some examples or sample YAML code if you like via email or Discord. You should have my email now in a response I sent a few days ago to your comment under my Livestream #2 video. It's no problem if you want to reach out via email. It's much easier to provide examples and more info via email as I'm limited as to what I can provide here in the comments.
Great man!
I have the lights all connected on the stairs and got both PIR sensors hooked up and put the file in my automations file then restarted home assistant I can see the automations when I go into configuration then automation. but I can not get it to turn on with the PIR sensors. if I go into automations and hit RUN ACTIONS I can get it to turn on and off but that's it. I could really use your help
I'll be glad to try to help out as best I can. First off, did you define your PIR sensors in ESPHome? It sounds like the actions work fine, but the automation trigger, based on the PIR sensors is not firing. It could also be a missing or misnamed helper (e.g. timer, input_boolean, etc. in the conditions of the automation that is causing the automation to fail and not fire the actions. Do you see anything in the Configuration -> Logs that looks like an error related to the automation? If you like, please feel free to email me at resinchemtech.diy@gmail.com as it might be easier to try to resolve via email than here in the comments (I might not be able to respond until tomorrow... as it's getting a little late where I am!).
You great for me sir
what if i dont have a 3d printer. How can i get enclosure?
If you live near a college or a community with some sort of maker space, you can sometimes get them to print parts for you at a very low cost. If that isn't feasible, I recommend small electronic project boxes that you can find on Amazon or elsewhere. This is what I used before I had a 3D printer. You can take these small project boxes and drill holes or otherwise modify to meet your needs. You can also be creative and use all sorts of things around the house... like a toilet paper tube to restrict the angle detection of a motion detector, etc.
Isn't there a "staircase" mod binary for WLED?
Yes, I believe there is one now (github.com/Aircoookie/WLED/tree/master/usermods/Animated_Staircase). I don't think it existed when I originally built mine. It is a little more complex as you have to be able to compile your own version of WLED, send HTTP/API commands, etc. and I think it is designed for lights running under each tread as opposed to up the stringers. I've glanced at it, but not in any real detail. But like most DIY projects, there are always multiple ways to accomplish the same thing. Thanks for watching and recommending an alternative.
@@ResinChemTech you're right, they are for each tread and yes compiling can be pretty intimidating. Great project! Gave me an idea for my father in law...
Man I like that!
How did you do the torpedo effect at 2:45?
I think the actual effect I used at that point in the video was called Fireworks 1D. It is one of over 100 different effects provided by WLED. I didn't have to do anything other than select it in the WLED interface!
Love it and I'm a year late!! Lol
Is there a way to set this up with Google Home
I don't believe so... not in it's current state. I don't think either WLED (light control) or ESPHome (motion detection) have any integrations directly with Google Home. I *can* control the lights by voice via Google (turn on/off), but that is technically via the integration with Home Assistant and not the LED controller or motion detectors themselves.
However, if you are looking for more basic version that would just turn the LEDs on/off with motion (and without needing Home Assistant or a smart hub), I'll be releasing a new video in a few days that shows how to build a controller to do just that.
That's a little extra...Might be cool for a bachelor.
Love it
Thanks! I appreciate it. And thanks for watching and taking the time to comment.
@PaulHibbert made me chuckle every time home assistant was mentioned. Go check out his channel to know why.
Yeah... I'm very familiar with Paul and his channel. While I don't always agree 100% with some of his ideas, I will admit he is always entertaining and often makes me laugh out loud as well. I know exactly what you are talking about with Home Assistant... and I sometimes have difficulties restraining myself every time I utter "zigbee"!
EPIC
This is way cool
Thanks! Much appreciated.