Shadow Box Internet Clock with NeoPixel Visualization

Adafruit NeoPixel LED Strip with 3-pin JST Connector - 1 meter

Adafruit NeoPixel LED Strip with 3-pin JST Connector lit up rainbow

Plug in and glow, this Adafruit NeoPixel LED Strip with JST PH Connector has 30 total LEDs and is 1 meter long, in classy Adafruit...

$12.50

In Stock

Power your pixels & magtag with a USB C cable.

1 x USB C Cable

1m USB C Cable

Once your project is programmed, you can plug it into the wall directly with this USB C power supply. This cable will work great with a Smart Plug in case you want to add home automation control to your artwork.

1 x USB C Power Suppply

Power Supply 5.1V 3A with USB C - 1.5 meter long

Download the latest CircuitPython for your board from circuitpython.org

You'll Also Need

A shadow box frame - mine is 8"x8"
A vinyl cutter, laser cutter, or a sharp utility knife and lots of skill & patience
A laminating machine & 5mil laminating pouches
Paper for the layers
Opaque tape or sticky vinyl for the front frame layer
Zots 3d glue dots

CircuitPython is a derivative of MicroPython designed to simplify experimentation and education on low-cost microcontrollers. It makes it easier than ever to get prototyping by requiring no upfront desktop software downloads. Simply copy and edit files on the CIRCUITPY drive to iterate.

Set Up CircuitPython

Follow the steps to get CircuitPython installed on your MagTag.

Click the link above and download the latest .BIN and .UF2 file

(depending on how you program the ESP32S2 board you may need one or the other, might as well get both)

Download and save it to your desktop (or wherever is handy).

Plug your MagTag into your computer using a known-good USB cable.

A lot of people end up using charge-only USB cables and it is very frustrating! So make sure you have a USB cable you know is good for data sync.

Option 1 - Load with UF2 Bootloader

This is by far the easiest way to load CircuitPython. However it requires your board has the UF2 bootloader installed. Some early boards do not (we hadn't written UF2 yet!) - in which case you can load using the built in ROM bootloader.

Still, try this first!

Try Launching UF2 Bootloader

Loading CircuitPython by drag-n-drop UF2 bootloader is the easier way and we recommend it. If you have a MagTag where the front of the board is black, your MagTag came with UF2 already on it.

Launch UF2 by double-clicking the Reset button (the one next to the USB C port). You may have to try a few times to get the timing right.

If the UF2 bootloader is installed, you will see a new disk drive appear called MAGTAGBOOT

Copy the UF2 file you downloaded at the first step of this tutorial onto the MAGTAGBOOT drive

If you're using Windows and you get an error at the end of the file copy that says Error from the file copy, Error 0x800701B1: A device which does not exist was specified. You can ignore this error, the bootloader sometimes disconnects without telling Windows, the install completed just fine and you can continue. If its really annoying, you can also upgrade the bootloader (the latest version of the UF2 bootloader fixes this warning)

Your board should auto-reset into CircuitPython, or you may need to press reset. A CIRCUITPY drive will appear. You're done! Go to the next pages.

Option 2 - Use esptool to load BIN file

If you have an original MagTag with while soldermask on the front, we didn't have UF2 written for the ESP32S2 yet so it will not come with the UF2 bootloader.

You can upload with esptool to the ROM (hardware) bootloader instead!

Follow the initial steps found in the Run esptool and check connection section of the ROM Bootloader page to verify your environment is set up, your board is successfully connected, and which port it's using.

In the final command to write a binary file to the board, replace the port with your port, and replace "firmware.bin" with the the file you downloaded above.

The output should look something like the output in the image.

Press reset to exit the bootloader.

Your CIRCUITPY drive should appear!

You're all set! Go to the next pages.

Option 3 - Use Chrome Browser To Upload BIN file

If for some reason you cannot get esptool to run, you can always try using the Chrome-browser version of esptool we have written. This is handy if you don't have Python on your computer, or something is really weird with your setup that makes esptool not run (which happens sometimes and isn't worth debugging!) You can follow along on the Web Serial ESPTool page and either load the UF2 bootloader and then come back to Option 1 on this page, or you can download the CircuitPython BIN file directly using the tool in the same manner as the bootloader.

One of the great things about the ESP32 is the built-in WiFi capabilities. This page covers the basics of getting connected using CircuitPython.

The first thing you need to do is update your code.py to the following. Click the Download Project Bundle button below to download the necessary libraries and the code.py file in a zip file. Extract the contents of the zip file, and copy the entire lib folder and the code.py file to your CIRCUITPY drive.

Download Project Bundle

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2020 Brent Rubell for Adafruit Industries
#
# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT

import ipaddress
import ssl
import wifi
import socketpool
import adafruit_requests

# URLs to fetch from
TEXT_URL = "http://wifitest.adafruit.com/testwifi/index.html"
JSON_QUOTES_URL = "https://www.adafruit.com/api/quotes.php"
JSON_STARS_URL = "https://api.github.com/repos/adafruit/circuitpython"

# Get wifi details and more from a secrets.py file
try:
    from secrets import secrets
except ImportError:
    print("WiFi secrets are kept in secrets.py, please add them there!")
    raise

print("ESP32-S2 WebClient Test")

print("My MAC addr:", [hex(i) for i in wifi.radio.mac_address])

print("Available WiFi networks:")
for network in wifi.radio.start_scanning_networks():
    print("\t%s\t\tRSSI: %d\tChannel: %d" % (str(network.ssid, "utf-8"),
            network.rssi, network.channel))
wifi.radio.stop_scanning_networks()

print("Connecting to %s"%secrets["ssid"])
wifi.radio.connect(secrets["ssid"], secrets["password"])
print("Connected to %s!"%secrets["ssid"])
print("My IP address is", wifi.radio.ipv4_address)

ipv4 = ipaddress.ip_address("8.8.4.4")
print("Ping google.com: %f ms" % (wifi.radio.ping(ipv4)*1000))

pool = socketpool.SocketPool(wifi.radio)
requests = adafruit_requests.Session(pool, ssl.create_default_context())

print("Fetching text from", TEXT_URL)
response = requests.get(TEXT_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print(response.text)
print("-" * 40)

print("Fetching json from", JSON_QUOTES_URL)
response = requests.get(JSON_QUOTES_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print(response.json())
print("-" * 40)

print()

print("Fetching and parsing json from", JSON_STARS_URL)
response = requests.get(JSON_STARS_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print("CircuitPython GitHub Stars", response.json()["stargazers_count"])
print("-" * 40)

print("done")

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2020 Brent Rubell for Adafruit Industries
#
# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT

import ipaddress
import ssl
import wifi
import socketpool
import adafruit_requests

# URLs to fetch from
TEXT_URL = "http://wifitest.adafruit.com/testwifi/index.html"
JSON_QUOTES_URL = "https://www.adafruit.com/api/quotes.php"
JSON_STARS_URL = "https://api.github.com/repos/adafruit/circuitpython"

# Get wifi details and more from a secrets.py file
try:
    from secrets import secrets
except ImportError:
    print("WiFi secrets are kept in secrets.py, please add them there!")
    raise

print("ESP32-S2 WebClient Test")

print("My MAC addr:", [hex(i) for i in wifi.radio.mac_address])

print("Available WiFi networks:")
for network in wifi.radio.start_scanning_networks():
    print("\t%s\t\tRSSI: %d\tChannel: %d" % (str(network.ssid, "utf-8"),
            network.rssi, network.channel))
wifi.radio.stop_scanning_networks()

print("Connecting to %s"%secrets["ssid"])
wifi.radio.connect(secrets["ssid"], secrets["password"])
print("Connected to %s!"%secrets["ssid"])
print("My IP address is", wifi.radio.ipv4_address)

ipv4 = ipaddress.ip_address("8.8.4.4")
print("Ping google.com: %f ms" % (wifi.radio.ping(ipv4)*1000))

pool = socketpool.SocketPool(wifi.radio)
requests = adafruit_requests.Session(pool, ssl.create_default_context())

print("Fetching text from", TEXT_URL)
response = requests.get(TEXT_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print(response.text)
print("-" * 40)

print("Fetching json from", JSON_QUOTES_URL)
response = requests.get(JSON_QUOTES_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print(response.json())
print("-" * 40)

print()

print("Fetching and parsing json from", JSON_STARS_URL)
response = requests.get(JSON_STARS_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print("CircuitPython GitHub Stars", response.json()["stargazers_count"])
print("-" * 40)

print("done")

Your CIRCUITPY drive should resemble the following.

To get connected, the next thing you need to do is update the secrets.py file.

Secrets File

We expect people to share tons of projects as they build CircuitPython WiFi widgets. What we want to avoid is people accidentally sharing their passwords or secret tokens and API keys. So, we designed all our examples to use a secrets.py file, that is on your CIRCUITPY drive, to hold secret/private/custom data. That way you can share your main project without worrying about accidentally sharing private stuff.

The initial secrets.py file on your CIRCUITPY drive should look like this:

Download Project Bundle

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2020 Adafruit Industries
#
# SPDX-License-Identifier: Unlicense

# This file is where you keep secret settings, passwords, and tokens!
# If you put them in the code you risk committing that info or sharing it

secrets = {
    'ssid' : 'home_wifi_network',
    'password' : 'wifi_password',
    'aio_username' : 'my_adafruit_io_username',
    'aio_key' : 'my_adafruit_io_key',
    'timezone' : "America/New_York", # http://worldtimeapi.org/timezones
    }

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2020 Adafruit Industries
#
# SPDX-License-Identifier: Unlicense

# This file is where you keep secret settings, passwords, and tokens!
# If you put them in the code you risk committing that info or sharing it

secrets = {
    'ssid' : 'home_wifi_network',
    'password' : 'wifi_password',
    'aio_username' : 'my_adafruit_io_username',
    'aio_key' : 'my_adafruit_io_key',
    'timezone' : "America/New_York", # http://worldtimeapi.org/timezones
    }

Inside is a Python dictionary named secrets with a line for each entry. Each entry has an entry name (say 'ssid') and then a colon to separate it from the entry key ('home_wifi_network') and finally a comma (,).

At a minimum you'll need to adjust the ssid and password for your local WiFi setup so do that now!

As you make projects you may need more tokens and keys, just add them one line at a time. See for example other tokens such as one for accessing GitHub or the Hackaday API. Other non-secret data like your timezone can also go here, just cause its called secrets doesn't mean you can't have general customization data in there!

For the correct time zone string, look at http://worldtimeapi.org/timezones and remember that if your city is not listed, look for a city in the same time zone, for example Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Miami are all on the same time as New York.

Of course, don't share your secrets.py - keep that out of GitHub, Discord or other project-sharing sites.

Don't share your secrets.py file, it has your passwords and API keys in it!

If you connect to the serial console, you should see something like the following:

adafruit_products_1__screen__Users_brentrubell__screen_.png

In order, the example code...

Checks the ESP32's MAC address.

print("My MAC addr:", [hex(i) for i in wifi.radio.mac_address])

print("My MAC addr:", [hex(i) for i in wifi.radio.mac_address])

Performs a scan of all access points and prints out the access point's name (SSID), signal strength (RSSI), and channel.

print("Avaliable WiFi networks:")
for network in wifi.radio.start_scanning_networks():
    print("\t%s\t\tRSSI: %d\tChannel: %d" % (str(network.ssid, "utf-8"),
            network.rssi, network.channel))
wifi.radio.stop_scanning_networks()

print("Avaliable WiFi networks:")
for network in wifi.radio.start_scanning_networks():
    print("\t%s\t\tRSSI: %d\tChannel: %d" % (str(network.ssid, "utf-8"),
            network.rssi, network.channel))
wifi.radio.stop_scanning_networks()

Connects to the access point you defined in the secrets.py file, prints out its local IP address, and attempts to ping google.com to check its network connectivity.

print("Connecting to %s"%secrets["ssid"])
wifi.radio.connect(secrets["ssid"], secrets["password"])
print(print("Connected to %s!"%secrets["ssid"]))
print("My IP address is", wifi.radio.ipv4_address)

ipv4 = ipaddress.ip_address("8.8.4.4")
print("Ping google.com: %f ms" % wifi.radio.ping(ipv4))

print("Connecting to %s"%secrets["ssid"])
wifi.radio.connect(secrets["ssid"], secrets["password"])
print(print("Connected to %s!"%secrets["ssid"]))
print("My IP address is", wifi.radio.ipv4_address)

ipv4 = ipaddress.ip_address("8.8.4.4")
print("Ping google.com: %f ms" % wifi.radio.ping(ipv4))

The code creates a socketpool using the wifi radio's available sockets. This is performed so we don't need to re-use sockets. Then, it initializes a a new instance of the requests interface - which makes getting data from the internet really really easy.

pool = socketpool.SocketPool(wifi.radio)
requests = adafruit_requests.Session(pool, ssl.create_default_context())

pool = socketpool.SocketPool(wifi.radio)
requests = adafruit_requests.Session(pool, ssl.create_default_context())

To read in plain-text from a web URL, call requests.get - you may pass in either a http, or a https url for SSL connectivity.

print("Fetching text from", TEXT_URL)
response = requests.get(TEXT_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print(response.text)
print("-" * 40)

print("Fetching text from", TEXT_URL)
response = requests.get(TEXT_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print(response.text)
print("-" * 40)

Requests can also display a JSON-formatted response from a web URL using a call to requests.get.

print("Fetching json from", JSON_QUOTES_URL)
response = requests.get(JSON_QUOTES_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print(response.json())
print("-" * 40)

print("Fetching json from", JSON_QUOTES_URL)
response = requests.get(JSON_QUOTES_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print(response.json())
print("-" * 40)

Finally, you can fetch and parse a JSON URL using requests.get. This code snippet obtains the stargazers_count field from a call to the GitHub API.

print("Fetching and parsing json from", JSON_STARS_URL)
response = requests.get(JSON_STARS_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print("CircuitPython GitHub Stars", response.json()["stargazers_count"])
print("-" * 40)

print("Fetching and parsing json from", JSON_STARS_URL)
response = requests.get(JSON_STARS_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print("CircuitPython GitHub Stars", response.json()["stargazers_count"])
print("-" * 40)

OK you now have your ESP32 board set up with a proper secrets.py file and can connect over the Internet. If not, check that your secrets.py file has the right ssid and password and retrace your steps until you get the Internet connectivity working!

A very common need for projects is to know the current date and time. Especially when you want to deep sleep until an event, or you want to change your display based on what day, time, date, etc. it is

Determining the correct local time is really really hard. There are various time zones, Daylight Savings dates, leap seconds, etc. Trying to get NTP time and then back-calculating what the local time is, is extraordinarily hard on a microcontroller just isn't worth the effort and it will get out of sync as laws change anyways.

For that reason, we have the free adafruit.io time service. Free for anyone, with a free adafruit.io account. You do need an account because we have to keep accidentally mis-programmed-board from overwhelming adafruit.io and lock them out temporarily. Again, it's free!

There are other services like WorldTimeAPI, but we don't use those for our guides because they are nice people and we don't want to accidentally overload their site. Also, there's a chance it may eventually go down or also require an account.

Step 1) Make an Adafruit account

It's free! Visit https://accounts.adafruit.com/ to register and make an account if you do not already have one

Step 2) Sign into Adafruit IO

Head over to io.adafruit.com and click Sign In to log into IO using your Adafruit account. It's free and fast to join.

Step 3) Get your Adafruit IO Key

Click on My Key in the top bar

You will get a popup with your Username and Key (In this screenshot, we've covered it with red blocks)

Go to your secrets.py file on your CIRCUITPY drive and add three lines for aio_username, aio_key and timezone so you get something like the following:

# This file is where you keep secret settings, passwords, and tokens!
# If you put them in the code you risk committing that info or sharing it

secrets = {
    'ssid' : 'home_wifi_network',
    'password' : 'wifi_password',
    'aio_username' : 'my_adafruit_io_username',
    'aio_key' : 'my_adafruit_io_key',
    'timezone' : "America/New_York", # http://worldtimeapi.org/timezones
    }

# This file is where you keep secret settings, passwords, and tokens!
# If you put them in the code you risk committing that info or sharing it

secrets = {
    'ssid' : 'home_wifi_network',
    'password' : 'wifi_password',
    'aio_username' : 'my_adafruit_io_username',
    'aio_key' : 'my_adafruit_io_key',
    'timezone' : "America/New_York", # http://worldtimeapi.org/timezones
    }

The timezone is optional, if you don't have that entry, adafruit.io will guess your timezone based on geographic IP address lookup. You can visit http://worldtimeapi.org/timezones to see all the time zones available (even though we do not use worldtimeapi for time-keeping we do use the same time zone table)

Step 4) Upload Test Python Code

This code is like the Internet Test code from before, but this time it will connect to adafruit.io and get the local time

Download the latest Library Bundle from circuitpython.org

import ipaddress
import ssl
import wifi
import socketpool
import adafruit_requests
import secrets


TEXT_URL = "http://wifitest.adafruit.com/testwifi/index.html"
JSON_QUOTES_URL = "https://www.adafruit.com/api/quotes.php"
JSON_STARS_URL = "https://api.github.com/repos/adafruit/circuitpython"

# Get wifi details and more from a secrets.py file
try:
    from secrets import secrets
except ImportError:
    print("WiFi secrets are kept in secrets.py, please add them there!")
    raise

# Get our username, key and desired timezone
aio_username = secrets["aio_username"]
aio_key = secrets["aio_key"]
location = secrets.get("timezone", None)
TIME_URL = "https://io.adafruit.com/api/v2/%s/integrations/time/strftime?x-aio-key=%s&tz=%s" % (aio_username, aio_key, location)
TIME_URL += "&fmt=%25Y-%25m-%25d+%25H%3A%25M%3A%25S.%25L+%25j+%25u+%25z+%25Z"

print("ESP32-S2 Adafruit IO Time test")

print("My MAC addr:", [hex(i) for i in wifi.radio.mac_address])

print("Available WiFi networks:")
for network in wifi.radio.start_scanning_networks():
    print("\t%s\t\tRSSI: %d\tChannel: %d" % (str(network.ssid, "utf-8"),
            network.rssi, network.channel))
wifi.radio.stop_scanning_networks()

print("Connecting to %s"%secrets["ssid"])
wifi.radio.connect(secrets["ssid"], secrets["password"])
print("Connected to %s!"%secrets["ssid"])
print("My IP address is", wifi.radio.ipv4_address)

ipv4 = ipaddress.ip_address("8.8.4.4")
print("Ping google.com: %f ms" % wifi.radio.ping(ipv4))

pool = socketpool.SocketPool(wifi.radio)
requests = adafruit_requests.Session(pool, ssl.create_default_context())

print("Fetching text from", TIME_URL)
response = requests.get(TIME_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print(response.text)
print("-" * 40)

import ipaddress
import ssl
import wifi
import socketpool
import adafruit_requests
import secrets


TEXT_URL = "http://wifitest.adafruit.com/testwifi/index.html"
JSON_QUOTES_URL = "https://www.adafruit.com/api/quotes.php"
JSON_STARS_URL = "https://api.github.com/repos/adafruit/circuitpython"

# Get wifi details and more from a secrets.py file
try:
    from secrets import secrets
except ImportError:
    print("WiFi secrets are kept in secrets.py, please add them there!")
    raise

# Get our username, key and desired timezone
aio_username = secrets["aio_username"]
aio_key = secrets["aio_key"]
location = secrets.get("timezone", None)
TIME_URL = "https://io.adafruit.com/api/v2/%s/integrations/time/strftime?x-aio-key=%s&tz=%s" % (aio_username, aio_key, location)
TIME_URL += "&fmt=%25Y-%25m-%25d+%25H%3A%25M%3A%25S.%25L+%25j+%25u+%25z+%25Z"

print("ESP32-S2 Adafruit IO Time test")

print("My MAC addr:", [hex(i) for i in wifi.radio.mac_address])

print("Available WiFi networks:")
for network in wifi.radio.start_scanning_networks():
    print("\t%s\t\tRSSI: %d\tChannel: %d" % (str(network.ssid, "utf-8"),
            network.rssi, network.channel))
wifi.radio.stop_scanning_networks()

print("Connecting to %s"%secrets["ssid"])
wifi.radio.connect(secrets["ssid"], secrets["password"])
print("Connected to %s!"%secrets["ssid"])
print("My IP address is", wifi.radio.ipv4_address)

ipv4 = ipaddress.ip_address("8.8.4.4")
print("Ping google.com: %f ms" % wifi.radio.ping(ipv4))

pool = socketpool.SocketPool(wifi.radio)
requests = adafruit_requests.Session(pool, ssl.create_default_context())

print("Fetching text from", TIME_URL)
response = requests.get(TIME_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print(response.text)
print("-" * 40)

After running this, you will see something like the below text. We have blocked out the part with the secret username and key data!

Note at the end you will get the date, time, and your timezone! If so, you have correctly configured your secrets.py and can continue to the next steps!

To use all the amazing features of your MagTag with CircuitPython, you must first install a number of libraries. This page covers that process.

Get Latest Adafruit CircuitPython Bundle

Download the Adafruit CircuitPython Library Bundle. You can find the latest release here:

Download the adafruit-circuitpython-bundle-version-mpy-*.zip bundle zip file, and unzip a folder of the same name. Inside you'll find a lib folder. The entire collection of libraries is too large to fit on the CIRCUITPY drive. Therefore, you'll need to copy the necessary libraries to your board individually.

At a minimum, the following libraries are required. Copy the following folders or .mpy files to the lib folder on your CIRCUITPY drive. If the library is a folder, copy the entire folder to the lib folder on your board.

Library folders (copy the whole folder over to lib):

adafruit_magtag - This is a helper library designed for using all of the features of the MagTag, including networking, buttons, NeoPixels, etc.
adafruit_portalbase - This library is the base library that adafruit_magtag is built on top of.
adafruit_bitmap_font - There is fancy font support, and it's easy to make new fonts. This library reads and parses font files.
adafruit_display_text - This library displays text on the screen.
adafruit_io - This library helps connect the MagTag to our free data logging and viewing service
adafruit_minimqtt - This library provides MQTT service for Adafruit IO.

Library files:

adafruit_requests.mpy - This library allows us to perform HTTP requests and get responses back from servers. GET/POST/PUT/PATCH - they're all in here!
adafruit_fakerequests.mpy - This library allows you to create fake HTTP requests by using local files.
adafruit_miniqr.mpy - QR creation library lets us add easy-to-scan 2D barcodes to the E-Ink display
neopixel.mpy - This library is used to control the onboard NeoPixels.
simpleio.mpy - This library is used for tone generation.

Secrets

Even if you aren't planning to go online with your MagTag, you'll need to have a secrets.py file in the root directory (top level) of your CIRCUITPY drive. If you do not intend to connect to wireless, it does not need to have valid data in it. Here's more info on the secrets.py file.

Secrets File Setup

Open the secrets.py file on your CircuitPython device using Mu or your favorite text editor. If you don't have one, copy the generic one below. You're going to edit this file to enter your wifi and location info.

Change aio_username to your Adafruit IO username
Change aio_key to your Adafruit IO active key. Don't use the one in the example below, it's just a placeholder
Change timezone to your time zone. Find the correct one here.
Change latitude and longitude to your location. Get this info by looking up your house in Google Maps and right-clicking on that spot

Your secrets.py file should look something like this:

# This file is where you keep secret settings, passwords, and tokens!
# If you put them in the code you risk committing that info or sharing it

secrets = {
    'ssid' : 'Wifi_Network',
    'password' : 'Wifi_Password',
    'timezone' : "America/Los_Angeles", # http://worldtimeapi.org/timezones
    'aio_username'  :  'Username',
    'aio_key' : '36e7bd431d4lwd9mx21x8b10d9be7a77d8d5',
    'latitude'  : 38.86965735043201, 
    'longitude' : -121.07998478906876,
	}

# This file is where you keep secret settings, passwords, and tokens!
# If you put them in the code you risk committing that info or sharing it

secrets = {
    'ssid' : 'Wifi_Network',
    'password' : 'Wifi_Password',
    'timezone' : "America/Los_Angeles", # http://worldtimeapi.org/timezones
    'aio_username'  :  'Username',
    'aio_key' : '36e7bd431d4lwd9mx21x8b10d9be7a77d8d5',
    'latitude'  : 38.86965735043201, 
    'longitude' : -121.07998478906876,
	}

Additional Files & Libraries

Grab the FancyLED library from the CircuitPython library bundle and copy it to your MagTag's lib folder.

Download the project .zip below. Copy all 3 files in the zip file to the root of your CIRCUITPY drive:

background.bmp (background image)
Lato-Regular-74.pcf (font file)
code.py (main code)

additional_files.zip

Download Project Bundle

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2021 Erin St Blaine for Adafruit Industries
#
# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT

"""
Clock & sky colorbox for Adafruit MagTag: displays current time while
NeoPixels provide theme lighting for the time of day. Requires WiFi
internet access -- configure credentials in secrets.py. An Adafruit IO
user name and API key are also needed there, plus timezone and
geographic coords.
"""

# pylint: disable=import-error
import time
import json
import board
import neopixel
from adafruit_magtag.magtag import MagTag
import adafruit_fancyled.adafruit_fancyled as fancy

# UTC offset queries require some info from the secrets table...
try:
    from secrets import secrets
except ImportError:
    print('Please set up secrets.py with network credentials.')


# CONFIGURABLE SETTINGS ----------------------------------------------------

USE_AMPM_TIME = True # Set to False to use 24-hour time (e.g. 18:00)
NUM_LEDS = 22        # Length of NeoPixel strip
BRIGHTNESS = 0.9     # NeoPixel brightness: 0.0 (off) to 1.0 (max)
SPIN_TIME = 10 * 60  # Seconds for NeoPixels to complete one revolution
# Default spin time is 10 minutes. It should be very slow...imperceptible
# really...as there will be pauses when network activity is occurring.

DAY_PALETTE = [               # Daylight colors
    fancy.CRGB(0.5, 0, 1.0),  # Purplish blue
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0.5, 1.0),  # Blue
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0.5, 1.0),  # Blue
    0x1B90FF,                 # Cyan
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0.8, 0.2),  # Green
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0.8, 0.2),  # Green
    0xFFEA0A,                 # Yellow
    0xFFEA0A,                 # Yellow
    0xFFEA0A,                 # Yellow
    0xFFEA0A,                 # Yellow
    0x30FEF2,                 # Sky blue
    0x0C69FC,                 # Sky blue
    0x1A82FF,
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0.8, 0.8),  # Green
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0.8, 0.2),  # Green
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0.8, 0.2),  # Green
    fancy.CRGB(0.5, 0, 1.0),] # Purplish blue

NIGHT_PALETTE = [ # Starlight colors
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0, 1.0),
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0.2, 1.0),
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0.1, 1.0),
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0, 1.0),
    0x000000,
    0x000000,
    0x000000,
    fancy.CRGB(1.0, 1.0, 0.8),
    0x000000,
    fancy.CRGB(0.3, 0.3, 0.3),
    fancy.CRGB(0.2, 0.2, 0.2),
    fancy.CRGB(0.3, 0.3, 0.3),
    0x000000,
    0x000000,
    0x000000,
    0x000000]

HORIZON_PALETTE = [            # Dawn & dusk colors
    fancy.CHSV(0.8),           # Purple
    fancy.CHSV(1.0),           # Red
    fancy.CHSV(1.0),           # Red
    fancy.CRGB(1.0, 0.5, 0.0), # Orange
    fancy.CRGB(1.0, 0.5, 0.0), # Orange
    fancy.CRGB(1.0, 0.8, 0.0), # Yellow
    0xFFFFFF,                  # White
    fancy.CRGB(1.0, 0.8, 0.0), # Yellow
    fancy.CRGB(1.0, 0.5, 0.0)] # Orange


# SOME UTILITY FUNCTIONS ---------------------------------------------------

def hh_mm(time_struct, twelve_hour=True):
    """ Given a time.struct_time, return a string as H:MM or HH:MM, either
        12- or 24-hour style depending on twelve_hour flag.
    """
    postfix = ""
    if twelve_hour:
        if time_struct.tm_hour > 12:
            hour_string = str(time_struct.tm_hour - 12) # 13-23 -> 1-11 (pm)
            postfix = "pm"
        elif time_struct.tm_hour > 0:
            hour_string = str(time_struct.tm_hour) # 1-12
            postfix = "am"
        else:
            hour_string = '12' # 0 -> 12 (am)
            postfix = "pm"
    else:
        hour_string = '{hh:02d}'.format(hh=time_struct.tm_hour)
    return hour_string + ':{mm:02d}'.format(mm=time_struct.tm_min) + postfix

def parse_time(timestring):
    """ Given a string of the format YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.SS-HH:MM (and
        optionally a DST flag), convert to and return a numeric value for
        elapsed seconds since midnight (date, UTC offset and/or decimal
        fractions of second are ignored).
    """
    date_time = timestring.split('T') # Separate into date and time
    hour_minute_second = date_time[1].split('+')[0].split('-')[0].split(':')
    return (int(hour_minute_second[0]) * 3600 +
            int(hour_minute_second[1]) * 60 +
            int(hour_minute_second[2].split('.')[0]))

def blend(palette1, palette2, weight2, offset):
    """ Given two FancyLED color palettes and a weighting (0.0 to 1.0) of
        the second palette, plus a positional offset (where 0.0 is the start
        of each palette), fill the NeoPixel strip with an interpolated blend
        of the two palettes.
    """
    weight2 = min(1.0, max(0.0, weight2)) # Constrain input to 0.0-1.0
    weight1 = 1.0 - weight2               # palette1 weight (inverse of #2)
    for i in range(NUM_LEDS):
        position = offset + i / NUM_LEDS
        color1 = fancy.palette_lookup(palette1, position)
        color2 = fancy.palette_lookup(palette2, position)
        # Blend the two colors based on weight1&2, run through gamma func:
        color = fancy.CRGB(
            color1[0] * weight1 + color2[0] * weight2,
            color1[1] * weight1 + color2[1] * weight2,
            color1[2] * weight1 + color2[2] * weight2)
        color = fancy.gamma_adjust(color, brightness=BRIGHTNESS)
        PIXELS[i] = color.pack()
    PIXELS.show()


# ONE-TIME INITIALIZATION --------------------------------------------------

MAGTAG = MagTag()

MAGTAG.graphics.set_background("/background.bmp")

MAGTAG.add_text(
    text_font="Lato-Regular-74.pcf",
    text_position=(MAGTAG.graphics.display.width // 2, 30),
    text_anchor_point=(0.5, 0),
    is_data=False,
)

# Declare NeoPixel object on pin D10 with NUM_LEDS pixels, no auto-write.
# Set brightness to max as we'll be using FancyLED's brightness control.
PIXELS = neopixel.NeoPixel(board.D10, NUM_LEDS, brightness=0.1,
                           auto_write=False)
PIXELS.show() # Off at start

LAST_SYNC = time.monotonic() - 5000 # Force initial clock sync
LAST_MINUTE = -1                    # Force initial display update
LAST_DAY = -1                       # Force initial sun query
SUNRISE = 6 * 60 * 60               # Sunrise @ 6am by default
SUNSET = 18 * 60 * 60               # Sunset @ 6pm by default
UTC_OFFSET = '+00:00'               # Gets updated along with time
SUN_FLAG = False                    # Triggered at midnight

# MAIN LOOP ----------------------------------------------------------------

while True:
    if (time.monotonic() - LAST_SYNC) > 3600: # Sync time once an hour
        MAGTAG.network.get_local_time()
        LAST_SYNC = time.monotonic()
        # Sun API requires a valid UTC offset. Adafruit IO's time API
        # offers this, but get_local_time() above (using AIO) doesn't
        # store it anywhere. I’ll put in a feature request for the
        # PortalBase library, but in the meantime this just makes a
        # second request to the time API asking for that one value.
        # Since time is synced only once per hour, the extra request
        # isn't particularly burdensome.
        try:
            RESPONSE = MAGTAG.network.requests.get(
                'https://io.adafruit.com/api/v2/%s/integrations/time/'
                'strftime?x-aio-key=%s&tz=%s' % (secrets.get('aio_username'),
                                                 secrets.get('aio_key'),
                                                 secrets.get('timezone')) +
                '&fmt=%25z')
            if RESPONSE.status_code == 200:
                # Arrives as sHHMM, convert to sHH:MM
                print(RESPONSE.text)
                UTC_OFFSET = RESPONSE.text[:3] + ':' + RESPONSE.text[-2:]
        except: # pylint: disable=bare-except
            # If query fails, prior value is kept until next query.
            # Only changes 2X a year anyway -- worst case, if these
            # events even align, is rise/set is off by an hour.
            pass

    NOW = time.localtime() # Current time (as time_struct)

    # If minute has changed, refresh display
    if LAST_MINUTE != NOW.tm_min:
        MAGTAG.set_text(hh_mm(NOW, USE_AMPM_TIME), index=0)
        LAST_MINUTE = NOW.tm_min

    # If day has changed (local midnight), set flag for later sun query
    # (it's not done at midnight, see below).
    if LAST_DAY != NOW.tm_mday:
        SUN_FLAG = True
        LAST_DAY = NOW.tm_mday

    # If the sun flag is set, and if the time is 3:05 am or thereabouts,
    # query the sun API for new rise and set times for today. It's done
    # this way (rather than at midnight) to allow for DST time jumps
    # (which occur at 2am) and slight clock drift (corrected hourly),
    # but still before dawn.
    if SUN_FLAG and (NOW.tm_hour * 60 + NOW.tm_min > 185):
        try:
            URL = ('https://api.met.no/weatherapi/sunrise/2.0/.json?'
                   'lat=%s&lon=%s&date=%s-%s-%s&offset=%s' %
                   (secrets.get('latitude'), secrets.get('longitude'),
                    str(NOW.tm_year), '{0:0>2}'.format(NOW.tm_mon),
                    '{0:0>2}'.format(NOW.tm_mday), UTC_OFFSET))
            print('Fetching sun data via', URL)
            FULL_DATA = json.loads(MAGTAG.network.fetch_data(URL))
            SUN_DATA = FULL_DATA['location']['time'][0]
            SUNRISE = parse_time(SUN_DATA['sunrise']['time'])
            SUNSET = parse_time(SUN_DATA['sunset']['time'])
        except: # pylint: disable=bare-except
            # If any part of the sun API query fails (whether network or
            # bad inputs), just repeat the old sun rise/set times and we'll
            # try again tomorrow. These only shift by seconds or minutes
            # daily, and the LEDs are just for mood, not like we're
            # launching a Mars rocket, errors here are not catastrophic.
            # Very worst case is a query error on a DST time change day,
            # in which case rise/set lights will be off by about an hour
            # until next successful query.
            pass
        SUN_FLAG = False # Pass or fail, don't query again until tomorrow

    # Convert NOW into elapsed seconds since midnight
    NOW = time.mktime(NOW) - time.mktime((NOW.tm_year, NOW.tm_mon,
                                          NOW.tm_mday, 0, 0, 0,
                                          NOW.tm_wday, NOW.tm_yday,
                                          NOW.tm_isdst))
    # Compare current time (in seconds since midnight) against sun rise/set
    # times and do color fades within +/- 30 minutes of each.
    if SUNRISE < NOW < SUNSET:                  # Day (ish)
        if NOW - SUNRISE < (30 * 60):           # Between sunrise & daylight
            PALETTE1, PALETTE2 = HORIZON_PALETTE, DAY_PALETTE
            INTERP = (NOW - SUNRISE) / (30 * 60)
        elif SUNSET - NOW < (30 * 60):          # Between daylight & sunset
            PALETTE1, PALETTE2 = HORIZON_PALETTE, DAY_PALETTE
            INTERP = (SUNSET - NOW) / (30 * 60)
        else:                                   # Full daylight
            PALETTE1 = PALETTE2 = DAY_PALETTE   # Day sky
            INTERP = 0.0                        # No fade
    else:                                       # Night (ish)
        if 0 < SUNRISE - NOW < (30 * 60):       # Between night & sunrise
            PALETTE1, PALETTE2 = HORIZON_PALETTE, NIGHT_PALETTE
            INTERP = (SUNRISE - NOW) / (30 * 60)
        elif 0 < NOW - SUNSET < (30 * 60):      # Between sunset & night
            PALETTE1, PALETTE2 = HORIZON_PALETTE, NIGHT_PALETTE
            INTERP = (NOW - SUNSET) / (30 * 60)
        else:                                   # Full night
            PALETTE1 = PALETTE2 = NIGHT_PALETTE # Night sky
            INTERP = 0.0                        # No fade

    # Update NeoPixels based on time of day
    blend(PALETTE1, PALETTE2, INTERP, time.monotonic() / SPIN_TIME)

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2021 Erin St Blaine for Adafruit Industries
#
# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT

"""
Clock & sky colorbox for Adafruit MagTag: displays current time while
NeoPixels provide theme lighting for the time of day. Requires WiFi
internet access -- configure credentials in secrets.py. An Adafruit IO
user name and API key are also needed there, plus timezone and
geographic coords.
"""

# pylint: disable=import-error
import time
import json
import board
import neopixel
from adafruit_magtag.magtag import MagTag
import adafruit_fancyled.adafruit_fancyled as fancy

# UTC offset queries require some info from the secrets table...
try:
    from secrets import secrets
except ImportError:
    print('Please set up secrets.py with network credentials.')


# CONFIGURABLE SETTINGS ----------------------------------------------------

USE_AMPM_TIME = True # Set to False to use 24-hour time (e.g. 18:00)
NUM_LEDS = 22        # Length of NeoPixel strip
BRIGHTNESS = 0.9     # NeoPixel brightness: 0.0 (off) to 1.0 (max)
SPIN_TIME = 10 * 60  # Seconds for NeoPixels to complete one revolution
# Default spin time is 10 minutes. It should be very slow...imperceptible
# really...as there will be pauses when network activity is occurring.

DAY_PALETTE = [               # Daylight colors
    fancy.CRGB(0.5, 0, 1.0),  # Purplish blue
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0.5, 1.0),  # Blue
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0.5, 1.0),  # Blue
    0x1B90FF,                 # Cyan
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0.8, 0.2),  # Green
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0.8, 0.2),  # Green
    0xFFEA0A,                 # Yellow
    0xFFEA0A,                 # Yellow
    0xFFEA0A,                 # Yellow
    0xFFEA0A,                 # Yellow
    0x30FEF2,                 # Sky blue
    0x0C69FC,                 # Sky blue
    0x1A82FF,
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0.8, 0.8),  # Green
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0.8, 0.2),  # Green
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0.8, 0.2),  # Green
    fancy.CRGB(0.5, 0, 1.0),] # Purplish blue

NIGHT_PALETTE = [ # Starlight colors
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0, 1.0),
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0.2, 1.0),
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0.1, 1.0),
    fancy.CRGB(0, 0, 1.0),
    0x000000,
    0x000000,
    0x000000,
    fancy.CRGB(1.0, 1.0, 0.8),
    0x000000,
    fancy.CRGB(0.3, 0.3, 0.3),
    fancy.CRGB(0.2, 0.2, 0.2),
    fancy.CRGB(0.3, 0.3, 0.3),
    0x000000,
    0x000000,
    0x000000,
    0x000000]

HORIZON_PALETTE = [            # Dawn & dusk colors
    fancy.CHSV(0.8),           # Purple
    fancy.CHSV(1.0),           # Red
    fancy.CHSV(1.0),           # Red
    fancy.CRGB(1.0, 0.5, 0.0), # Orange
    fancy.CRGB(1.0, 0.5, 0.0), # Orange
    fancy.CRGB(1.0, 0.8, 0.0), # Yellow
    0xFFFFFF,                  # White
    fancy.CRGB(1.0, 0.8, 0.0), # Yellow
    fancy.CRGB(1.0, 0.5, 0.0)] # Orange


# SOME UTILITY FUNCTIONS ---------------------------------------------------

def hh_mm(time_struct, twelve_hour=True):
    """ Given a time.struct_time, return a string as H:MM or HH:MM, either
        12- or 24-hour style depending on twelve_hour flag.
    """
    postfix = ""
    if twelve_hour:
        if time_struct.tm_hour > 12:
            hour_string = str(time_struct.tm_hour - 12) # 13-23 -> 1-11 (pm)
            postfix = "pm"
        elif time_struct.tm_hour > 0:
            hour_string = str(time_struct.tm_hour) # 1-12
            postfix = "am"
        else:
            hour_string = '12' # 0 -> 12 (am)
            postfix = "pm"
    else:
        hour_string = '{hh:02d}'.format(hh=time_struct.tm_hour)
    return hour_string + ':{mm:02d}'.format(mm=time_struct.tm_min) + postfix

def parse_time(timestring):
    """ Given a string of the format YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.SS-HH:MM (and
        optionally a DST flag), convert to and return a numeric value for
        elapsed seconds since midnight (date, UTC offset and/or decimal
        fractions of second are ignored).
    """
    date_time = timestring.split('T') # Separate into date and time
    hour_minute_second = date_time[1].split('+')[0].split('-')[0].split(':')
    return (int(hour_minute_second[0]) * 3600 +
            int(hour_minute_second[1]) * 60 +
            int(hour_minute_second[2].split('.')[0]))

def blend(palette1, palette2, weight2, offset):
    """ Given two FancyLED color palettes and a weighting (0.0 to 1.0) of
        the second palette, plus a positional offset (where 0.0 is the start
        of each palette), fill the NeoPixel strip with an interpolated blend
        of the two palettes.
    """
    weight2 = min(1.0, max(0.0, weight2)) # Constrain input to 0.0-1.0
    weight1 = 1.0 - weight2               # palette1 weight (inverse of #2)
    for i in range(NUM_LEDS):
        position = offset + i / NUM_LEDS
        color1 = fancy.palette_lookup(palette1, position)
        color2 = fancy.palette_lookup(palette2, position)
        # Blend the two colors based on weight1&2, run through gamma func:
        color = fancy.CRGB(
            color1[0] * weight1 + color2[0] * weight2,
            color1[1] * weight1 + color2[1] * weight2,
            color1[2] * weight1 + color2[2] * weight2)
        color = fancy.gamma_adjust(color, brightness=BRIGHTNESS)
        PIXELS[i] = color.pack()
    PIXELS.show()


# ONE-TIME INITIALIZATION --------------------------------------------------

MAGTAG = MagTag()

MAGTAG.graphics.set_background("/background.bmp")

MAGTAG.add_text(
    text_font="Lato-Regular-74.pcf",
    text_position=(MAGTAG.graphics.display.width // 2, 30),
    text_anchor_point=(0.5, 0),
    is_data=False,
)

# Declare NeoPixel object on pin D10 with NUM_LEDS pixels, no auto-write.
# Set brightness to max as we'll be using FancyLED's brightness control.
PIXELS = neopixel.NeoPixel(board.D10, NUM_LEDS, brightness=0.1,
                           auto_write=False)
PIXELS.show() # Off at start

LAST_SYNC = time.monotonic() - 5000 # Force initial clock sync
LAST_MINUTE = -1                    # Force initial display update
LAST_DAY = -1                       # Force initial sun query
SUNRISE = 6 * 60 * 60               # Sunrise @ 6am by default
SUNSET = 18 * 60 * 60               # Sunset @ 6pm by default
UTC_OFFSET = '+00:00'               # Gets updated along with time
SUN_FLAG = False                    # Triggered at midnight

# MAIN LOOP ----------------------------------------------------------------

while True:
    if (time.monotonic() - LAST_SYNC) > 3600: # Sync time once an hour
        MAGTAG.network.get_local_time()
        LAST_SYNC = time.monotonic()
        # Sun API requires a valid UTC offset. Adafruit IO's time API
        # offers this, but get_local_time() above (using AIO) doesn't
        # store it anywhere. I’ll put in a feature request for the
        # PortalBase library, but in the meantime this just makes a
        # second request to the time API asking for that one value.
        # Since time is synced only once per hour, the extra request
        # isn't particularly burdensome.
        try:
            RESPONSE = MAGTAG.network.requests.get(
                'https://io.adafruit.com/api/v2/%s/integrations/time/'
                'strftime?x-aio-key=%s&tz=%s' % (secrets.get('aio_username'),
                                                 secrets.get('aio_key'),
                                                 secrets.get('timezone')) +
                '&fmt=%25z')
            if RESPONSE.status_code == 200:
                # Arrives as sHHMM, convert to sHH:MM
                print(RESPONSE.text)
                UTC_OFFSET = RESPONSE.text[:3] + ':' + RESPONSE.text[-2:]
        except: # pylint: disable=bare-except
            # If query fails, prior value is kept until next query.
            # Only changes 2X a year anyway -- worst case, if these
            # events even align, is rise/set is off by an hour.
            pass

    NOW = time.localtime() # Current time (as time_struct)

    # If minute has changed, refresh display
    if LAST_MINUTE != NOW.tm_min:
        MAGTAG.set_text(hh_mm(NOW, USE_AMPM_TIME), index=0)
        LAST_MINUTE = NOW.tm_min

    # If day has changed (local midnight), set flag for later sun query
    # (it's not done at midnight, see below).
    if LAST_DAY != NOW.tm_mday:
        SUN_FLAG = True
        LAST_DAY = NOW.tm_mday

    # If the sun flag is set, and if the time is 3:05 am or thereabouts,
    # query the sun API for new rise and set times for today. It's done
    # this way (rather than at midnight) to allow for DST time jumps
    # (which occur at 2am) and slight clock drift (corrected hourly),
    # but still before dawn.
    if SUN_FLAG and (NOW.tm_hour * 60 + NOW.tm_min > 185):
        try:
            URL = ('https://api.met.no/weatherapi/sunrise/2.0/.json?'
                   'lat=%s&lon=%s&date=%s-%s-%s&offset=%s' %
                   (secrets.get('latitude'), secrets.get('longitude'),
                    str(NOW.tm_year), '{0:0>2}'.format(NOW.tm_mon),
                    '{0:0>2}'.format(NOW.tm_mday), UTC_OFFSET))
            print('Fetching sun data via', URL)
            FULL_DATA = json.loads(MAGTAG.network.fetch_data(URL))
            SUN_DATA = FULL_DATA['location']['time'][0]
            SUNRISE = parse_time(SUN_DATA['sunrise']['time'])
            SUNSET = parse_time(SUN_DATA['sunset']['time'])
        except: # pylint: disable=bare-except
            # If any part of the sun API query fails (whether network or
            # bad inputs), just repeat the old sun rise/set times and we'll
            # try again tomorrow. These only shift by seconds or minutes
            # daily, and the LEDs are just for mood, not like we're
            # launching a Mars rocket, errors here are not catastrophic.
            # Very worst case is a query error on a DST time change day,
            # in which case rise/set lights will be off by about an hour
            # until next successful query.
            pass
        SUN_FLAG = False # Pass or fail, don't query again until tomorrow

    # Convert NOW into elapsed seconds since midnight
    NOW = time.mktime(NOW) - time.mktime((NOW.tm_year, NOW.tm_mon,
                                          NOW.tm_mday, 0, 0, 0,
                                          NOW.tm_wday, NOW.tm_yday,
                                          NOW.tm_isdst))
    # Compare current time (in seconds since midnight) against sun rise/set
    # times and do color fades within +/- 30 minutes of each.
    if SUNRISE < NOW < SUNSET:                  # Day (ish)
        if NOW - SUNRISE < (30 * 60):           # Between sunrise & daylight
            PALETTE1, PALETTE2 = HORIZON_PALETTE, DAY_PALETTE
            INTERP = (NOW - SUNRISE) / (30 * 60)
        elif SUNSET - NOW < (30 * 60):          # Between daylight & sunset
            PALETTE1, PALETTE2 = HORIZON_PALETTE, DAY_PALETTE
            INTERP = (SUNSET - NOW) / (30 * 60)
        else:                                   # Full daylight
            PALETTE1 = PALETTE2 = DAY_PALETTE   # Day sky
            INTERP = 0.0                        # No fade
    else:                                       # Night (ish)
        if 0 < SUNRISE - NOW < (30 * 60):       # Between night & sunrise
            PALETTE1, PALETTE2 = HORIZON_PALETTE, NIGHT_PALETTE
            INTERP = (SUNRISE - NOW) / (30 * 60)
        elif 0 < NOW - SUNSET < (30 * 60):      # Between sunset & night
            PALETTE1, PALETTE2 = HORIZON_PALETTE, NIGHT_PALETTE
            INTERP = (NOW - SUNSET) / (30 * 60)
        else:                                   # Full night
            PALETTE1 = PALETTE2 = NIGHT_PALETTE # Night sky
            INTERP = 0.0                        # No fade

    # Update NeoPixels based on time of day
    blend(PALETTE1, PALETTE2, INTERP, time.monotonic() / SPIN_TIME)

Once all the files are copied from your computer to the CircuitPython device, your CIRCUITPY drive should look like this.

If you're having difficulty running this example, it could be because your MagTag CircuitPython firmware or library needs to be upgraded! Please be sure to follow https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-magtag/circuitpython to install the latest CircuitPython firmware and then also replace/update ALL the MagTag-specific libraries mentioned here https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-magtag/circuitpython-libraries-2

Troubleshooting

If you're still having trouble, head over to our main MagTag guide for some troubleshooting tips.

Customizing your Code

There are a few configurable settings to look at near the top of the code:

# CONFIGURABLE SETTINGS ----------------------------------------------------

USE_AMPM_TIME = True # Set to False to use 24-hour time (e.g. 18:00)
NUM_LEDS = 22        # Length of NeoPixel strip
BRIGHTNESS = 0.9     # NeoPixel brightness: 0.0 (off) to 1.0 (max)
SPIN_TIME = 10 * 60  # Seconds for NeoPixels to complete one revolution
# Default spin time is 10 minutes. It should be very slow...imperceptible
# really...as there will be pauses when network activity is occurring.

# CONFIGURABLE SETTINGS ----------------------------------------------------

USE_AMPM_TIME = True # Set to False to use 24-hour time (e.g. 18:00)
NUM_LEDS = 22        # Length of NeoPixel strip
BRIGHTNESS = 0.9     # NeoPixel brightness: 0.0 (off) to 1.0 (max)
SPIN_TIME = 10 * 60  # Seconds for NeoPixels to complete one revolution
# Default spin time is 10 minutes. It should be very slow...imperceptible
# really...as there will be pauses when network activity is occurring.

Change NUM_LEDS to match the number of pixels in your strip. You can also adjust the global brightness here. Change SPIN_TIME to speed up or slow down the animation speed.

Color Palettes

There are three color palettes in the code: a daytime palette, a night time palette, and a horizon palette (for sunrise and sunset). You can customize these to your heart's content. FancyLED makes it really easy to create custom palettes. You can add as many or as few colors as you like, and rearrange the order to suit your design. Learn more about FancyLED here.