For our Smart Lights we will be using NeoPixels so that we can make one long string of lights throughout our mini smart home.

Smart Lights are some of the most common things you will find in any Smart Home and they typically have the most controllable options. Most Smart Lights made by Hue and Lifx give you control over the color, brightness, on/off, and some animations.

To connect the NeoPixels, we will be using the 5V and GND NeoPixel terminals on the Adafruit Crickit controller board.

Rather than connect the signal wire to the same terminal, we will be connecting it to the outside header socket for the Feather connector so that our signal will connect to Pin 13 on the Huzzah.

Each light will need to be connected in a string of lights that will wind its way through the house. The nice thing about NeoPixels is that we only need three wires to go from one light to the next because we can target any single LED in the string and tell it what to do.

As for the individual NeoPixels, there are a few form factors that you can use depending on how fancy you want to get. I tend to just get a roll of the 30 LEDs per meter strips and cut each single LED off where indicated so I can solder wire between them. Then you also have plenty of NeoPixels for other projects. There are a few other NeoPixel form factors that I have listed below if you want.

It is a good Idea to measure out the length of wire needed to get each NeoPixel to were it needs to go.

Solder the wires to each copper pad on the NeoPixels being sure that you have the output from one NeoPixel is connected to the input of the next NeoPixel.

When finished, attach the NeoPixels to the ceiling inside the Mini Smart Home where ever you think it should go. I used just a little hot glue, but regular glue or tape would work as well.

Other NeoPixels that you can wire together:

Adafruit NeoPixel LED Dots Strand - 20 LEDs at 4 inch Pitch
Attaching NeoPixel strips to your costume can be a struggle as the flexible PCBs can crack when bent too much. So how to add little dots of color? Use these stranded NeoPixel dots!...
$27.50
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Glowing NeoPixel Mini Button PCB wired up to a microcontroller
These are the smallest NeoPixel breakouts around! Tiny, bright RGB pixels to your project. These little PCBs are only 8mm x 10mm and have two sets of three pads on the back for...
$4.95
In Stock
Angled shot of 4 Flora RGB Smart NeoPixel version 2.
What's a wearable project without LEDs? Our favorite part of the Flora platform is these tiny smart pixels. Designed specifically for wearables, these updated Flora NeoPixels have...
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Four glowing Breadboard-friendly RGB Smart NeoPixels wired up on a breadboard
This is the easiest way possible to add small, bright RGB pixels to your project. We took the same technology from our Flora NeoPixels and made them breadboard friendly, with two rows...
Out of Stock

This guide was first published on Oct 02, 2019. It was last updated on Mar 18, 2024.

This page (Smart Lights) was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

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