Configuring WipperSnapper
In the real (physical) world we have electrical components, so to represent that on our WipperSnapper device page in Adafruit IO we also have components! They are like digital twins with the real world electrical components, but before you can use them you have to tell your device which ones to use and how!
So now that you have the physical hardware setup, including the electrical components and wiring, it's time to setup your LDR Photocell component on the WipperSnapper Device page...
Connect your board to Adafruit IO Wippersnapper and navigate to the WipperSnapper board list.
On this page, select the WipperSnapper board you're using to be brought to the board's interface page.
Use the New Component button to bring up the Component Picker window.
Select the Light Sensor component from the New Component window to represent the LDR / Photocell. You can search for elements of the name, category or description.
The Create Light Sensor Component window will be shown.
Change the Light Sensor Pin to match your wiring, if you followed the Wiring guidance above then the pin is A5.
Change the measurement Period to 30 seconds, then click the Create Component button.
You should now be presented with the Light Sensor component on your device page.
After a short period (the measurement period) the sensor data will be displayed, until then the Value will show a dash / hyphen / minus ( - ), or null.
Test the circuit by waiting for the Light Sensor component to display a value, and then cover up the LDR / Photocell and wait for another reading (or two). It's super sensitive to light so cover it well or hide it in a box.
Finally uncover the LDR and wait for the next data reading which should return to near the first value.
It's worth noting that behind the scenes WipperSnapper + Adafruit IO creates a new data feed for each component. A feed is where new data values are published or subscribed to, you can see all your feeds on your Feeds page.
To easily see the feed for one of your WipperSnapper components just click the graph symbol to be taken to a chart and table of previous readings.
The feed page presents an interactive graph with filtering options, a data download button, the manual Add Data button, and the main table of data beneath.
The side bar allows you to adjust your feeds' settings, sharing options, notifications, webhooks, and license.
It's also possible to disable a feed here, which removes it from counting against your limits, but it can then no longer be updated.
Okay, so now that you have the Photocell working as expected, it's on to creating the Adafruit IO Dashboard...
Page last edited August 28, 2025
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