Arduino Library Installation

1. Open the Arduino IDE.
2. Select Tools > Manage Libraries.
3. Search for “CheerLights” and click “install”.

CheerLights Arduino Methods

• begin(const char* ssid, const char* password): Initialize the library with your WiFi credentials to let the library handle the WiFi connection.
• begin(): Initialize the library without WiFi credentials (use this to manually connect to the WiFi network and manage the WiFi connection outside the library).
• reconnect(): Reconnect to the WiFi network.
• isConnected(): Returns a boolean indicating whether the library is connected to the WiFi network.
• getCurrentColor(): Get the current CheerLights color from ThingSpeak channel 1417. Returns a pointer to a constant char array.
• currentColorName(): The current CheerLights color name (e.g., “red”). Returns a pointer to a constant char array.
• currentColorHex(): The current CheerLights color as a hex value (e.g., 0xFF0000). Returns a uint32_t.
• currentRed(), currentGreen(), currentBlue(): The RGB values for the current CheerLights color (e.g., 255, 0, 0). Returns a uint8_t.
• currentHue(), currentSaturation(), currentValue(): The HSV values for the current CheerLights color (e.g. 0, 255, 255). Returns a uint16_t for hue and uint8_t for saturation and value.
• hasColorChanged(): Returns a boolean indicating whether the current CheerLights color has changed since the last call to this method.

CheerLights Projects

Now, that you know about the Arduino library for CheerLights, you might be thinking about what you can do with it. CheerLights is a global network of synchronized lights. The lights are all set to the same color. Anyone can change the color by changing it on the CheerLights Discord Server and other social networks like Mastodon and BlueSky.

Get inspired by taking a look at the build gallery at the CheerLights website.

WLED Installation on Windows

• Download ‘esptool.exe’ app from the esptool releases area.
• Download the latest release of WLED for the device that you are using.
• Plug in the device and note the COM port.
• Open the Command Prompt and enter this command:

esptool.exe -p COMXXXXX write_flash 0x010000 WLED_0.14.4_ESP32-C3.bin

Note: Change COMXXXXX to the actual COM port that your device is connected to. If your ESP device is on COM 9, then this would be COM9.

Here’s what it looks like when everything works successfully on Windows:

WLED Configuration

This device’s button is on GPIO 9, and the data pin for LED lights is on GPIO 10. I need to set these in the WLED configuration for the lights to work.

• From WLED, select Config -> LED Preferences.
• Under LED outputs, enter ’10’ into the GPIO box.

• Scroll down the GPIO button sections.
• Select 9 for Button 0 and set to pushbutton.

• Scroll to the bottom and select Save.

CheerLights Settings (optional)

If (and when) you want to connect this WLED controller to CheerLights, just add the CheerLights MQTT server address to the Sync Interfaces. For MQTT to work, you will need to cycle the power going to the board (i.e., unplug and plug back in).

Configure the Arduino IDE to Support the Arduino UNO RF WiFi Board

To use the Arduino UNO R4 WiFi board, you need to update and install some board drivers.

• Open the Arduino IDE (from Arduino) and update to v2.3.3 or newer.
• Go to the Boards Manager, search “Arduino UNO R4” and click INSTALL.

Controlling the LED Matrix

I am here for the LEDs.

Here’s how to use the onboard LED matrix, which requires the LED_Matrix library. Start your sketches with “#include “Arduino_LED_Matrix.h”, create an instance, and begin it in the setup section of your code.

Here’s an animation example:

#include "Arduino_LED_Matrix.h"   
#include "animation.h"            

ArduinoLEDMatrix matrix;  

void setup() {
  matrix.loadSequence(animation);
  matrix.begin();
  matrix.play(true);
}

void loop() {
}

I learned everything that I know about this from the Arduino documentation: https://docs.arduino.cc/tutorials/uno-r4-wifi/led-matrix/

The cool part is that the library includes predefined frames. You can load these, and the Arduino UNO R4 WiFi displays them without knowing how to code the frames.

#include "Arduino_LED_Matrix.h"

ArduinoLEDMatrix matrix;          

void setup() {
  matrix.begin();                 
}

void loop() {
  matrix.loadFrame(LEDMATRIX_HEART_BIG);
}

Here are the available frames in the LED_Matrix library:

• LEDMATRIX_BLUETOOTH
• LEDMATRIX_BOOTLOADER_ON
• LEDMATRIX_CHIP
• LEDMATRIX_CLOUD_WIFI
• LEDMATRIX_DANGER
• LEDMATRIX_EMOJI_BASIC
• LEDMATRIX_EMOJI_HAPPY
• LEDMATRIX_EMOJI_SAD
• LEDMATRIX_HEART_BIG
• LEDMATRIX_HEART_SMALL
• LEDMATRIX_LIKE
• LEDMATRIX_MUSIC_NOTE
• LEDMATRIX_RESISTOR
• LEDMATRIX_UNO

Going Further

George and I explored this new board together. We had a lot of fun trying out the examples from the Arduino documentation and experimenting on our own. You know that I will be hooking this up to CheerLights soon, but we noticed that the LEDs are only red. We will have to get creative. Then, George had an idea… He said, “Let’s make a CheerLights for emoji. Like, red could be a smiley face.” Great idea. I might just do that.

We are experiencing the capabilities and limitations of AI collectively. After OpenAI’s Dev Day, I have been thinking of ways to learn the new features, services, and APIs that were dropped. This time of year always brings about a lot of inspiring CheerLights projects and new people joining CheerLights. This also comes with a lot of questions, as the new folks are learning IoT, looking for sample code, or just looking for inspiration on what to build. This gave me an idea and a challenge. Could I build an AI chatbot that can help onboard new people onto the CheerLights project and help them learn IoT?

If you have ChatGPT Plus, you can try the CheerLights IoT Expert bot right now.

What is CheerLights?

CheerLights is an Internet of Things (IoT) project that creates a global network of lights that change color in unison. The concept is straightforward yet powerful: any connected light anywhere in the world will change to the same color when a new color is set. This allows people across different locations to feel connected through a shared lighting experience.

Features of the CheerLights IoT Expert GPT

The CheerLights IoT Expert GPT has a lot of general knowledge of Arduino, ESP Wi-Fi devices, ThingSpeak, and CheerLights. You can ask anything from the basics to advanced things like code generation for a specific device configuration.

• Natural language interface
• Onboarding prompts to get started
• Technical support and debugging
• Idea generation
• Code generation
• The world’s most sophisticated CheerLights color checker

How it works

A Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) is an advanced type of artificial intelligence model designed to understand and generate human-like text. This is the technology that ChatGPT is built on. It’s built using a neural network architecture called a transformer, which excels at processing sequential data like language. GPT models are trained on vast amounts of text data, enabling them to learn language patterns, grammar, and context. They function by predicting the next word in a sequence, considering the words that have already been presented. This capability allows them to generate coherent and contextually relevant text responses. The more they are trained with diverse datasets, the better they become at mimicking human-like writing, answering questions, and even engaging in conversations, making them powerful tools in natural language processing.

OpenAI released a new feature where you can take the power of a foundational language model and direct it towards a specific domain. I created a GPT using all of the CheerLights documentation and blog posts that I have written over the past 12 years. I gave it additional instructions about where to find the latest CheerLights color and the fact that we no longer use Twitter/X. GPT-4 still thinks that you can set the color of everyone’s lights using Twitter (insert sad face emoji), but we are now on a Discord Server!

How to use the CheerLights IoT Expert Chatbot

If you are a ChatGPT Plus subscriber, all you have to do is load up the GPT by clicking this URL: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-E2zjJXE56-cheerlights-iot-expert

From there, just click on an onboarding prompt or type in a message.

Use Cases

Try one of these prompts to help inspire how to use the CheerLights IoT Expert chatbot.

• How do I tell which pin is the power pin on a WS2812B LED strip?
• I want a sparkle animation for a NeoPixel strip of 16 LEDs.
• How do I teach IoT to a group of kids using CheerLights?
• How do I show the latest color of CheerLights in my Chrome browser?
• Write Python code that retrieves the last 100 color changes and analyzes the data for any patterns.
• What are five ideas for a CheerLights display?

Get Started

Give the CheerLights IoT Expert bot a try. It can get things wrong, but it can also surprise you with something that you never thought of before. If it answers something incorrectly, let me know. I can always make changes and provide up-to-date information to make sure the bot gives the best answer possible. I am looking forward to seeing the creative CheerLights displays this season enhanced by ChatGPT. Join the CheerLights Discord server and share all of your awesome projects, ideas, and experiences.

Bonus Prompt

I enabled image creation with DALL-E 3, just for fun. You can ask the CheerLights IoT Expert GPT to create images inspired by the latest CheerLights color. Try this prompt: Create an illustration based on the latest CheerLights color, depicting a globe with electric lights.

Twitter/X

According to my own History of the CheerLights Project, I created this project around the idea that anyone on Twitter, ahem, X, could change everyone’s lights. Twitter made the most sense. It was open and had a global reach. And the bonus was that followers of people who joined the project would see the tweets, which caused some of them to join the project. It was a nice, virtuous circle that fueled the growth of CheerLights year over year. 2022 was the biggest year for the project, just hitting its peak at the same time Twitter started to crack. The API access that we have had for over 12 years was cut off, users moved to decentralized platforms, and X’s relevance has been in constant question. Don’t get me wrong. I will always have a special place in my heart for Twitter. I can’t unwind Twitter’s on my professional growth over the last 15 years.

Discord

The CheerLights community got together last year and created a Discord server bot and even released the bot’s source code on GitHub. We did this to increase the number of ways to control the CheerLights network, but as it turned out, this is now the primary way to control CheerLights. Hundreds of our users moved over to the Discord server from Twitter/X. In some ways, Discord is way better. I love being able to chat in real-time with other people who are building CheerLights. A lot of people use Discord. And Discord is constantly evolving and keeping up with the trends by adding admin and community features. In other ways, it is not ideal for CheerLights. Discord servers are not easily discoverable. You have to be in the know. It is hard to attract new users since new users don’t see public mentions of the project. But I am not aiming for perfection. I am aiming for a path forward to keep the project growing. Discord is where we are now. Join us.

How can you help?

Since our Discord server is hidden from public view, we could use your help by making CheerLights discoverable. If you share your project on your blog or social channels, include a link to the Discord server invitation. H

CheerLights Discord Server Invitation Link: https://cheerlights.com/discord

Thank you to everyone who has helped build and grow this project over the last 12 years. This is always my favorite time of year getting to see the creative ways CheerLights gets used and how it enables learning of core IoT concepts.

CheerLights is a fun way to get started with IoT, microcontrollers, and LED lights. If you know how to make CheerLights work, you can build some other awesome IoT projects. CheerLights is a great project to get people interested in IoT. It’s often used as an “Hello, World” project for the Internet of Things, and what you learn can be applied to other project ideas.

To make a Halloween-inspired project, you can take the CheerLights color and illuminate a pumpkin or even a… skull from Pimoroni.

Check out other Halloween CheerLights projects over at the CheerLights blog. Have fun with the idea, build something spooky, and help spread the… fear.

CheerLights

CheerLights is an “Internet of Things” project I created in 2011 to help teach people IoT concepts. I consider it a “Hello, World” project to learn IoT protocols, microcontroller programming, and LED light control. CheerLights is a global network of synchronized colored lights. Everyone subscribes to the latest CheerLights color, which sets their lights to the same color. The color is set on the CheerLights Discord Server by anyone.

Apps

SkyStream: Track Bluesky Hashtags

IoT Debugger: Explore IoT Data

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Parts

First, you need to go buy a thing on Amazon. I recommend for this project an ESP8266-compatible device like the NodeMCU. Don’t be scared. Add it to your Amazon shopping list or ask Alexa to buy you one. It’s $8.

Other parts that you will need:

• Laptop
• Micro USB cable

ThingSpeak

While you are waiting for your Amazon stuff to arrive, you can learn about ThingSpeak.

ThingSpeak is where we are going to store the data collected by our thing and where we can see the data that we collected. Visit ThingSpeak.com and Sign Up for an account. This will just take a minute, and the user accounts are free. Once you have a user account, you need to create a channel. ThingSpeak channels are where data gets stored. Create a new channel by selecting Channels, My Channels, and then New Channel. Name the channel “ESP8266 Signal Strength” and name Field 1 “RSSI”. Click “Save Channel” at the bottom to finish the process.

Arduino Setup

Once the ESP8266 comes in the mail in a couple of days, you need to gather a few more things to be able to program this thing. You will need a laptop and a micro USB cable (like the one that you charge a phone with). On the laptop, we need to install some software to be able to program the ESP8266. Visit Arduino.cc and install the Arduino IDE.

Once the Arduino IDE is installed, open the program so we can do a couple of setup steps to get it ready to program ESP8266 devices. Under File, Preferences, and Additional Boards Manager URLs, add this link: http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json – this will allow the Arduino IDE to manage ESP8266-compatible boards.

Close and reopen Arduino. Click on Tools, Board, and Boards Manager…. to open the board manager. The Arduino IDE will load the Additional Boards URL that you entered in the preferences.

ThingSpeak Library

Arduino needs to have a library installed in order for your thing to know how to send data to ThingSpeak. In the Arduino IDE, choose Sketch, Include Library, and Manage Libraries. Search for “thingspeak” and click Install.

The thing that you bought from Amazon uses the CP2102 USB driver. You might have to install a USB driver from Silicon Labs for this to work with your computer. Connect the ESP8266 to your laptop with the micro USB cable.

Back on the Arduino IDE, under tools, configure the following settings:

Whew. We got through the setup. Now we can program this device or any ESP8266-compatible device and shouldn’t have to do that again.

Programming

The code that the Arduino IDE uses is called a “sketch” – this is just a short program that the device runs over and over. In our project, we are going to have the code measure the signal strength of the Wi-Fi connection and upload the data to ThingSpeak, wait, and repeat. Over time, we can see the signal strength of our Wi-Fi connection. Copy the example code to your Arduino IDE and change some of the defaults to match your Wi-Fi network and ThingSpeak settings.

Once everything is set, click Sketch and then Upload. This will take the code and program the ESP8266 with it. It takes a minute, so be patient. If anything goes wrong, make sure that you have the right board settings and that your “Port” matches what your laptop thinks the port is.

Back on ThingSpeak, you should see data start to come in. You are looking for the Private View of your channel and a chart that is updating. As new data comes in, the chart shows the latest value. If you carry the ESP8266 around the house, you might notice the signal strength changing.

Next Steps

To take the project further, you can use MATLAB on ThingSpeak to do some data analysis. I will post about IoT data analytics on another day. The ESP8266 source code for sending data to ThingSpeak is available on GitHub.

Welcome to the Internet of Things. Let me know if you try this out, and let me know if you take this project further and build something cool.

Features of IoT Debugger

• ThingSpeak Data Logger
• Particle.io Webhooks Manager
• Settings are saved in LocalStorage
• Built using HTML5, Bootstrap, and jQuery
• Open Source!

Demo and download the source code for IoT Debugger on GitHub.