Spice up your boots with custom animated NeoPixel LED lit shoelaces. Sync them to each other wirelessly using the free and open-source WLED software, and then take them out dancing in the great outdoors. Your shoes will stay connected to each other even when you're out of reach of WiFi.

WLED's access-point mode keeps your shoes connected and in sync. You can still connect to your shoes and control the animation modes with your smartphone, even when you're lost in the desert or deep in the woods. 

This is an easy project that requires just a little soldering. You'll need to do some software configuration, but no coding. WLED gives you dozens of customizable animation modes and color palettes to choose from. Make a playlist of super cool animations with just a few taps on your phone.

Materials

The QT Py ESP32 Pico is a fantastic tiny little board that makes NeoPixel projects easy. Hook it up to the NeoPixel BFF to plug the pixels directly into the board. Remember to get two of everything - one for each foot.

My boots have 9 sets of eyelets. I found that 1m of LEDs fill the shoelace holes perfectly. If your boots are taller, order more pixels. 

These slim LED dots are a great choice for this project. Initially I tried using a standard NeoPixel Skinny strip to get more lights, but the light strand broke when I tried threading it through the eyelets. These pixels are made to bend and flex, and I had a lot more success with them. They're also a lot less expensive. You only get 20 lights in the strand but that is plenty of lights to show some awesome animations on your feet.

Accessories & Cables

Adafruit carries a short USB C cable which will work to connect the QT Py to your battery. Or, check below for a cable that also has an on/off switch. 

Additional Materials

The QT Py and NeoPixel BFF stack on top of each other, back-to-back with the USB port and NeoPixel port facing the same direction. Solder them together using the included headers.

NeoPixel strips have an IN and OUT end. Be sure you're connecting to the IN end or the pixels won't light up. Look for arrows on the strip to show direction of data flow.

The NeoPixel strip plugs directly into the 3-pin connector on the BFF. Plug the power switch tail into the USB port on the QT Py and then into the battery.

This project powers the pixels directly through the board since there are only a few pixels. This arrangement works for small projects of 30-60 pixels. For larger projects with more LEDs, you'll want to power the pixels directly from a 5V power supply. If you are powering more than 60 LEDs or so, see the guides below:

• Sipping Power With NeoPixels
• Adafruit NeoPixel Überguide (Powering NeoPixels)

Assembly is fairly simple for this project. Watch this video tutorial for a complete step-by-step.

QT Py & BFF Headers

Connector Swap

These lights come with a 3-pin connector, but it's not the correct one for the NeoPixel BFF so you will need to replace it with the 3-pin, 2mm Stemma connector.

First, verify which wire is which. The Stemma connector is handily color-coded: Red for power, black for ground, and white for data. However, the LED strips are not marked in any way, so it can take some trial-and-error to figure out which wire is which.

On my strands, with the resin bump facing me:

• Cut the FEMALE connector -- this is the IN end
• Left wire goes to Stemma Power (red)
• Middle wire goes to Stemma G (black)
• Right wire goes to Stemma Data (white)

Troubleshooting

If the lights don't come on here are a couple things to try:

1. Open the WLED software and go to the LED Settings page. Make sure you have the correct pin (GPIO) entered here. The BFF's port is attached to A3, which corresponds to digital pin 15 (A3 is the analog pin number. Find this out in the pinout diagram in the QT PY guide).
2. Your LED strip may have a different wiring configuration. Try swapping the wires around or try soldering the data connection to the other end of your strip. 
3. If it's still not working, head over to the NeoPixel Uberguide and try uploading some basic code, just to see whether the problem is with your wiring or with the software. If you can get the lights to come on using Arduino or CircuitPython, the trouble is with the software -- try reinstalling.

These laces are going to be decorative, not functional. Be sure you're using boots with a side zipper so you can get them on and off without having to "untie" your NeoPixel strip each time.

My boots have standard 6mm eyelets, which are not quite big enough to fit the NeoPixel strand through. Luckily, there's a product available which converts eyelets to loops on your boots. Search for Boot Eyelets on Amazon. Shop around - they come in a variety of colors and styles.

Before you get the boots talking to each other you'll want to set up some presets and an animation playlist. 

"Presets" refer to a particular combination of animation, color palette, and speed/intensity/brightness settings. Making the presets is a lot of fun - you get to play around in WLED and find settings that suit your style.

"Playlists" are a scripted list of Presets that will play in a specific order (or shuffle) for a specified amount of time. WLED gives you a lot of control. You can also set your playlist as the default setting when WLED boots up, so you can just turn them on and go.

WLED software is great when you're within range of WiFi. But my goal with this guide is to get my shoes to sync when I'm out dancing at a festival, out of reach of any of my known WiFi networks. WLED has this capability! As long as the QT Py boards are close to each other (within a few feet), we can use Access Point mode (AP-MODE) to sync our boots or other costume pieces together. 

Here's how this works:

Rightshoe (host) Setup

The right shoe will be set up as the access point host.

Turn your right shoe strand on, but keep the left one turned off to avoid confusion. Make sure your smartphone or computer is on the same WiFi network you used during setup.

Connect to your right shoe QT Py by going to http://rightshoe.local in your web browser to bring up the WLED interface.

Leftshoe (Receiver) Setup

Turn the right shoe power off and turn the left shoe on. 

The left shoe is still talking to your home WiFi network, so go back to your WiFi settings and connect to your home WiFi instead of the "shoelaces" network. This might have happened automatically since "shoelaces" will disappear when the right shoe is turned off.

Click "save". Now your left shoe is looking for the "shoelaces" network and so you may lose connectivity for a bit.

Learn more about how all this works at the WLED knowlege base at https://kno.wled.ge/

Click the "nodes" button under the Info tab to see a list of all the instances of WLED on a particular network and their respective IP addresses.

Troubleshooting

Things can get confusing when you're working with more than one instance of WLED. If you find you can't connect to your board at all, on any WiFi network, the best thing to do is to plug the board into your computer and head back to install.wled.me and go through the install process again. During this process you'll have the opportunity to "Visit Device" or "Change WiFi". This is the best way to troubleshoot if you've mistyped a password or just can't connect for any reason. Don't be afraid to reinstall the software and start fresh if you can't figure out what's wrong.

It also really helps to install the WLED Native app, which adds a layer of control where you can name and organize different instances of WLED.

Use It

To control your shoes when you're not in WiFi range:

1. Turn on the right shoe (broadcaster)
2. Connect to the "shoelaces" WiFi network that appears with your smart phone
3. Turn on the left shoe (receiver)
4. Be sure the "sync" button is checked in the app. Changes made in the app will control both shoes.