cheerlights – About Things | A Hans Scharler Blog https://nothans.com Life, Comedy, Games, Tech, Marketing, and Community Thu, 06 Nov 2025 02:04:28 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://i0.wp.com/nothans.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/cropped-settings.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 cheerlights – About Things | A Hans Scharler Blog https://nothans.com 32 32 114568856 Introducing Clause Code — The Christmas Themed Coding Agent That You’ve Been Waiting For https://nothans.com/introducing-clause-code https://nothans.com/introducing-clause-code#respond Thu, 06 Nov 2025 01:59:47 +0000 https://nothans.com/?p=5236 Part of riding the Generative AI wave is learning how to build my own tools. I have been using Claude Code since February, and it occurred to me that I have never built my own coding agent. Anthropic provides all of the pieces of the puzzle: APIs, SDKs, and Python Packages. And since I always try to be funny… I thought it would be funny to create Clause Code… see how funny I am? See!?

So, Clause Code is my attempt to learn the Anthropic SDK and add a little Christmas magic to coding.

Clause Code

Why don’t I just let Clause Code tell you about Clause Code?

Clause Code transforms your coding workflow into a delightful holiday experience. Every interaction features festive ASCII art, and cheerful status messages like “Sleighing…” and “Jingling…” while Claude thinks. It’s like having Santa’s workshop right in your terminal!

Clause Code automatically detects when Claude generates code and extracts it into the right files. Just ask “Create a Flask app with authentication” and watch as it generates and writes app.py, auth.py, requirements.txt and more – all organized in your project folder. No more copy-pasting from chat windows!

Beautiful Syntax Highlighting Code is rendered with rich syntax highlighting using the Monokai theme, making every snippet easy to read and understand. Whether it’s Python, JavaScript, Rust, or any other language, your code looks gorgeous in the terminal.

Clause Code Modes

  • Santa Mode 🎅 – Full festive experience with maximum holiday cheer (/santa)
  • Grinch Mode ⚙ – Minimal, professional output when you need to focus (/grinch)
  • December Advent Calendar 🎁 – Throughout December, use /advent to unlock daily coding challenges with a festive twist. It’s like an advent calendar for developers – a new challenge each day!

I did learn a lot building this coding agent. For one, I learned how Anthropic is building these cool terminal apps. I totally missed that developers were making terminal apps. I discovered Textualize/rich (https://github.com/Textualize/rich) and other techniques that make the terminal interactive.

How To Use Clause Code

  • Copy Clause Code to your machine, navigate to that folder, and set your Anthropic API Key
  • Run the app with uv sync and uv run clause-code
  • Set a project folder with /project
  • Send in a prompt

Demo Time

Of course, I am going to make CheerLights project with my very own Clause Code coding agent.

Here’s my prompt:

build a web page that reads the cheerlights color from thingspeak and set its background to it. in the foreground show me falling snow using css.

With a bit of Christmas magic, I will get a webpage that gives me just what I wanted this year for Christmas. Or, maybe have been naughty and using a quantized model at peak hours of the day 😉

CheerLights Webpage Created by Clause Code

Check out the project on GitHub, feel free to make changes, learn something new, and share the joy. Make sure to use it during December and try out the Advent coding challenge feature!

Clause Code Building a CheerLights Web Page Video

A yule console.log() by the fire?

]]> https://nothans.com/introducing-clause-code/feed 0 5236 Learn How to Create Your Own MCP Server for Claude Desktop and Windsurf https://nothans.com/learn-how-to-create-your-own-mcp-server-for-claude-desktop-and-windsurf https://nothans.com/learn-how-to-create-your-own-mcp-server-for-claude-desktop-and-windsurf#respond Tue, 18 Mar 2025 18:38:07 +0000 https://nothans.com/?p=5073 The notion of an MCP – Model Context Protocol – has gone viral!

MCP attempts to standardize how LLM tools like Claude Desktop and Windsurf connect with external data sources and tools. So, naturally, I thought, “Put a bird on it.” Er, I mean, “Let’s CheerLight it.” By building a CheerLights interface, I learned everything from how to build Python libraries to Chrome extensions to Adrino integrations.

This looks like a big deal. I recommend that you learn how to build your own MCP server and/or use one of the hundreds that have already been created: https://github.com/punkpeye/awesome-mcp-servers

I am using Windsurf on Windows for this tutorial.

CheerLights MCP in Windsurf

From Windsurf, open the Terminal (View -> Terminal). Create a new folder called, “cheerlights-mcp” and enter it. Create a new file called, “server.py” and copy in the CheerLights MCP server code from GitHub.

From the terminal:

  • PS C:\github> cd .\cheerlights-mcp\
  • PS C:\github\cheerlights-mcp> python -m venv .venv
  • PS C:\github\cheerlights-mcp> .venv\Scripts\activate
  • PS C:\github\cheerlights-mcp> pip install mcp httpx

Add the CheerLights MCP to the Windsurf config file (adjust the path as needed).

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "cheerlights": {
            "command": "python",
            "args": ["C:\\github\\cheerlights-mcp\\server.py"]
        }
    }
}
CheerLights MCP added to the Windsurf MCP Config File

Restart Windsurf.

From the terminal, start the Python server for the MCP: PS C:\github\cheerlights-mcp> python server.py

This should enable the CheerLights MCP and show two tools in the Cascade Chat area.

CheerLights MCP enabled in Windsurf Cascade Chat

To use CheerLights MCP, you can ask Cascade, “What’s the current CheerLights color?” This will eventually get sent to the CheerLights MCP and the get_current_color() tool. If it all works, you will find out the latest color is magenta (or whatever the latest color happens to be)!

CheerLights MCP tells Windsurf the latest color is magenta

All of the source code is available on GitHub. Let me know if you give this a try and if you build your own. Have fun!

]]> https://nothans.com/learn-how-to-create-your-own-mcp-server-for-claude-desktop-and-windsurf/feed 0 5073 Official Arduino Library for CheerLights https://nothans.com/official-arduino-library-for-cheerlights https://nothans.com/official-arduino-library-for-cheerlights#respond Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:56:08 +0000 https://nothans.com/?p=4975 I have published an official library that supports Arduino-compatible Wi-Fi-enabled boards, along with several examples. The library supports the Arduino MKR1000, Arduino MKR WiFi 1010, Arduino Uno WiFi Rev2, Arduino Mega WiFi Rev2, Arduino Uno R4 WiFi, ESP8266, and ESP32. Include the library at the top of your Arduino sketch, use the method CheerLights.getCurrentColor(), and set the color of your RGB LEDs.

CheerLights Arduino Library

Arduino Library Installation

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

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.

]]> https://nothans.com/official-arduino-library-for-cheerlights/feed 0 4975 Updating WLED Binary on ESP32-C3 Devices https://nothans.com/updating-wled-binary-on-esp32-c3-devices https://nothans.com/updating-wled-binary-on-esp32-c3-devices#respond Wed, 13 Nov 2024 02:31:39 +0000 https://nothans.com/?p=4871 I recently bought a WLED controller based on the ESP32-C3 microcontroller. It has a button and a 3-pin connector for NeoPixel-style LEDs (WS281x). Once connected to Wi-Fi, this device gives you full access to the configuration, colors, and effects via the WLED app. My goal is to update its code to the latest version of WLED… and maybe connect it to CheerLights.

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

WLED Settings for CheerLights
]]> https://nothans.com/updating-wled-binary-on-esp32-c3-devices/feed 0 4871 Learning How to Use the Arduino UNO R4 WiFi Board https://nothans.com/learning-how-to-use-the-arduino-uno-r4-wifi-board https://nothans.com/learning-how-to-use-the-arduino-uno-r4-wifi-board#respond Sat, 02 Nov 2024 18:43:26 +0000 https://nothans.com/?p=4856 I jumped back into official Arduino boards after I saw an ad for the Arduino UNO R4 WiFi board. I have used Wemos and ESP-based devices for five years, but this new Arduino UNO R4 WiFi has an LED matrix right on the board! I am a sucker for LEDs.

Arduino UNO R4 WiFi

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.
Arduino Boards Manager for Arduino UNO R4

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.

]]> https://nothans.com/learning-how-to-use-the-arduino-uno-r4-wifi-board/feed 0 4856 World’s First GPT for IoT? Learn IoT From the CheerLights Expert GPT powered by ChatGPT. https://nothans.com/cheerlights-iot-expert-gpt https://nothans.com/cheerlights-iot-expert-gpt#respond Fri, 17 Nov 2023 22:17:26 +0000 https://nothans.com/?p=4304 CheerLights has entered the chat… the ChatGPT.

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.

CheerLights IoT Expert GPT

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.

]]> https://nothans.com/cheerlights-iot-expert-gpt/feed 0 4304 Moving away from X/Twitter: CheerLights is now a Discord IoT project https://nothans.com/cheerlights-is-now-a-discord-iot-project https://nothans.com/cheerlights-is-now-a-discord-iot-project#comments Wed, 25 Oct 2023 14:56:47 +0000 https://nothans.com/?p=4174 CheerLights is an Internet of Things (IoT) project that allows people from all over the world to synchronize the color of their lights to the same color, creating a kind of global connectedness.

CheerLights as conceptualized by DALL-E 3
CheerLights as conceptualized by DALL-E 3

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.

Controlling CheerLights on Discord

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.

]]> https://nothans.com/cheerlights-is-now-a-discord-iot-project/feed 4 4174 CheerLights for Halloween https://nothans.com/cheerlights-for-halloween-fearlights https://nothans.com/cheerlights-for-halloween-fearlights#respond Tue, 24 Oct 2023 19:27:07 +0000 https://nothans.com/?p=4170 Are you ready? Ready for another season of CheerLights? I love seeing CheerLights have a longer and longer season as the years go by. Last year, many people made Halloween displays that were connected to the CheerLights project… FearLights… if you will.

Cyan FearLights!

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.

Pimoroni Wireless Plasma Stick + Glass Skull

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

Streaming Lo-Fi inspired by the latest CheerLights Color
]]> https://nothans.com/cheerlights-for-halloween-fearlights/feed 0 4170 Exploring the Internet of Things (IoT) https://nothans.com/iot Wed, 18 Oct 2023 13:29:12 +0000 https://nothans.com/?page_id=4151

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

SkyStream: Demo | Code

IoT Debugger: Explore IoT Data

IoT Debugger: Demo | Code

Latest IoT Posts

Subscribe

I am exploring AI, IoT, community, and life… and sometimes barbecue… on a weekly basis. Subscribe to keep up with my latest musings about things.

]]> 4151 CheerLights IoT Projects https://nothans.com/cheerlights Wed, 30 Nov 2022 15:12:36 +0000 https://nothans.com/?page_id=3464 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.

Projects

For more about the history of CheerLights, read the article: The CheerLights Origin Story: Arduino, IoT, Twitter, and Community

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