Voice-activated lighting inside a smart home has become a common feature with the advent of smart light emitting diodes (LEDs), but a maker has taken it to another level with a huge light installation powered by Arduino.
Light[s]well is a custom 4 ft by 8 ft light installation comprised of 80/20 extrusions and fasteners with individual addressable LED strips embedded in the channels of the structure. It contains 74 sheets of laser-cut cardstock that make up the undulating light-diffusing wave pattern.
The maker, Brian Harms of NSTRMNT, crafted the light wall to be voice responsive thanks to the Arduino Alexa skill, a skill that can be enabled in Amazon Alexa that allows the smart voice speaker to interact with the maker board.
Light[s]well contains 30 LEDs per meter strips to give each gap in the cardstock two LEDs per structural metal beam for a total of six LEDs per gap. The LEDs are individually addressable and powered by an Arduino MKR1000 in conjunction with Arduino Create/IoT Cloud — a service that allows anyone to create IoT applications for real-time data monitoring, Wi-Fi and LoRa compatibility, to build a dashboard with more than 15 unique widgets and to automatically generate sketches.
In the video, the maker shows how, through voice activation, the lighting system can be changed to a variety of colors giving users the ability to provide several scenes and themes for households.
Learn more about the maker’s invention by visiting the NSTRMNT website.
