Incorporating scads of LEDs into an electronic project used to be a hairy prospect, a veritable rat’s nest of wires and code. The arrival of dedicated LED driver chips brought welcome relief, offloading grunt work from the microcontroller and allowing one to focus on the application. Much simpler, but still not “Christmas light” simple.

The WS2812 Integrated Light Source — or NeoPixel in Adafruit parlance — is the latest advance in the quest for a simple, scalable and affordable full-color LED. Red, green and blue LEDs are integrated alongside a driver chip into a tiny surface-mount package controlled through a single wire. They can be used individually, chained into longer strings or assembled into still more interesting form-factors.
We know you’re eager to get started…but If this is your first time using NeoPixels, please at least read the “Best Practices” page before connecting anything!

Important Things to Know About NeoPixels in General

  • Not all addressable LEDs are NeoPixels. “NeoPixel” is Adafruit’s brand for individually-addressable RGB color pixels and strips based on the WS2812WS2811 and SK6812 LED/drivers, using a single-wire control protocol. Other LED products we carry — DotStars, WS2801 pixels, LPD8806 and “analog” strips — use different methodologies (and have their own tutorials). When seeking technical support in the forums, a solution can be found more quickly if the correct LED type is mentioned, i.e. avoid calling DotStars “NeoPixels.” Similar, but different!
  • NeoPixels don’t just light up on their own; they require a microcontroller (such as Arduino) and some programming. We provide some sample code to get you started. To create your own effects and animation, you’ll need some programming practice. If this is a new experience, work through some of the beginning Arduino tutorials to get a feel for the language.
  • NeoPixels aren’t the answer for every project. The control signal has very strict timing requirements, and some development boards (such as Netduino or Raspberry Pi) can’t reliably achieve this in every situation. This is why we continue to offer other LED types; some are more adaptable to certain tasks.
Can I use NeoPixels for POV (persistence of vision) displays?

Not recommended. The refresh rate is relatively low (about 400 Hz to 2 KHz), and in fast motion may appear “speckled.” They look fine in stationary displays though (signs, decorations, jewelry, etc.). For POV use, DotStar strips will look much better (they have much higher refresh rate).

How about for light painting?

Definitely! The slower movement used for photographic light painting doesn’t call attention to the limited refresh rate; the results look great, especially with a light diffuser.

Is there a limit to the number of NeoPixels in a chain?

There’s no inherent limit in the maximum length of a NeoPixel chain, but eventually you’ll encounter any of various practical limits:

  1. RAM: NeoPixels require some RAM from the host microcontroller; more pixels = more RAM. It’s only a few bytes each, but as most microcontrollers are pretty resource-constrained, this becomes a very real consideration for large projects.
  2. Power: each NeoPixel draws a little bit of current; more pixels = more power. Power supplies likewise have some upper limit.
  3. Time: NeoPixels process data from the host microcontroller at a fixed data rate; more pixels = more time and lower animation frame rates.

This guide was first published on Aug 30, 2013. It was last updated on Mar 17, 2024.

This page (The Magic of NeoPixels) was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

Text editor powered by tinymce.