Arduino Library Installation

1. Open the Arduino IDE.
2. Select Tools > Manage Libraries.
3. Search for “CheerLights” and click “install”.

CheerLights Arduino Methods

• begin(const char* ssid, const char* password): Initialize the library with your WiFi credentials to let the library handle the WiFi connection.
• begin(): Initialize the library without WiFi credentials (use this to manually connect to the WiFi network and manage the WiFi connection outside the library).
• reconnect(): Reconnect to the WiFi network.
• isConnected(): Returns a boolean indicating whether the library is connected to the WiFi network.
• getCurrentColor(): Get the current CheerLights color from ThingSpeak channel 1417. Returns a pointer to a constant char array.
• currentColorName(): The current CheerLights color name (e.g., “red”). Returns a pointer to a constant char array.
• currentColorHex(): The current CheerLights color as a hex value (e.g., 0xFF0000). Returns a uint32_t.
• currentRed(), currentGreen(), currentBlue(): The RGB values for the current CheerLights color (e.g., 255, 0, 0). Returns a uint8_t.
• hasColorChanged(): Returns a boolean indicating whether the current CheerLights color has changed since the last call to this method.

CheerLights Arduino Library Reference: https://reference.arduino.cc/reference/en/libraries/cheerlights/

Installation

The Python Package for the CheerLights API is easy to install using pip.

pip install cheerlights_api

Usage Examples

To use the CheerLights Python package, import it at the start of your script and use one of the defined methods like get_current_color.

import cheerlights_api

# Get the current color name and hex code
current_color = cheerlights_api.get_current_color()
print(current_color)  # Example: {'color': 'red', 'hex': '#FF0000'}

# Get the current color name
color_name = cheerlights_api.get_current_color_name()
print(color_name)  # Example: 'red'

# Get the current hex code
hex_code = cheerlights_api.get_current_hex()
print(hex_code)  # Example: '#FF0000'

# Get the history of colors
history = cheerlights_api.get_color_history(5)
for entry in history:
    print(f"{entry['timestamp']}: {entry['color']} ({entry['hex']})")

# Convert a color name to hex
hex_code = cheerlights_api.color_name_to_hex('green')
print(hex_code)  # '#00FF00'

# Convert hex code to RGB
rgb = cheerlights_api.hex_to_rgb('#00FF00')
print(rgb)  # (0, 255, 0)

# Check if a color is valid
is_valid = cheerlights_api.is_valid_color('purple')
print(is_valid)  # True

You can pick one widget you like, get the URL, and embed it using an iframe with the URL as the source.

WordPress

Use the “Shortcode” block in the editor to embed these widgets on your WordPress site.

CheerLights Logo Widget iframe code

[iframe src="proxy.php?url=https://cheerlights.com/widgets/snow.html" width="100%" height="200"]

Steps

• Add a new block
• Search for “Shortcode”
• Copy the iframe code and adjust the src, width, and height as needed

Embed CheerLights Widgets on a Home Assistant Dashboard

To embed CheerLights widgets on a Home Assistant dashboard, follow these steps:

1. Open Home Assistant: Open your Home Assistant instance in a web browser.
2. Navigate to the Dashboard: Go to the dashboard where you want to add the CheerLights widget.
3. Edit the Dashboard: Click on the three dots menu in the top right corner and select “Edit Dashboard”.
4. Add a New Card: Click the “Add Card” button to add a new card to your dashboard.
5. Select the “Webpage” Card: Scroll down and select the “Webpage” card option. This allows you to embed a webpage.
6. Enter the Widget URL: Enter the URL of the CheerLights widget you want to embed (e.g., https://widgets.cheerlights.com/snow.html).
7. Save the Card: Click on the “Save” button to save the new card to your dashboard.

CheerLights Widget Links

• Solid Color Background: https://widgets.cheerlights.com/color.html
• CheerLights Logo: https://widgets.cheerlights.com/logo.html
• FearLights Logo: https://widgets.cheerlights.com/fearlights.html
• Snow: https://widgets.cheerlights.com/snow.html
• Lanterns: https://widgets.cheerlights.com/lanterns.html
• Leaves: https://widgets.cheerlights.com/leaves.html
• Aurora: https://widgets.cheerlights.com/aurora.html
• Particle: https://widgets.cheerlights.com/particle.html
• Digital Clock: https://widgets.cheerlights.com/clock.html

Let us know if you have any ideas for new widgets.

Becky also produced a video for her awesome YouTube channel describing the process of creating your first CheerLights circuit.

Be sure to like and subscribe to Becky’s channel for awesome maker and electronics videos. Also follow Becky’s work at BeckyStern.com.

Join the rest of the community on Discord to learn, control, and connect with others.

Cheers!

We found an awesome video produced by the illustrious Becky Stern and posted on the DigiKey YouTube channel. In this video, Becky covers easy ways to connect your project to the internet ands a bunch of project ideas to get your IoT journey started.

IoT is a network of physical objects, embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies, aiming to connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet.

To kick start your IoT journey, you’ll need some WiFi microcontrollers. Excellent choices for beginners are the ESP8266 and the ESP32. These microcontrollers are fantastic for their affordable price and compatibility with Arduino-based projects. Additionally, Arduino’s line of WiFi boards, Particle, and Raspberry Pi Pico W are also worth mentioning.

With these tools in your hands, you can easily connect your projects to the web. Now, let’s start with a fun project: controlling LEDs with CheerLights!

CheerLights

One of the coolest projects to try out is connecting your LEDs to CheerLights, a global RGB LED color-sharing platform. When a new color comes into the system, all of the CheerLights projects worldwide update to that color. It’s a simple concept, yet an excellent stepping stone for beginners into the world of IoT.

Visualizing Project Data with Cloud Services

Visualizing and logging sensor data is an essential aspect of any IoT project. Cloud services like Arduino Cloud, Adafruit IO, and ThingSpeak make this process a breeze. These platforms allow you to store, analyze, and visualize your project data for free. For instance, you can set up a project to read from a temperature sensor, then send that reading to the cloud at regular intervals. When you check back in on the cloud service, you’ll see a graph of the data over time.

IFTTT: If This, Then That

IFTTT is an API gateway that allows you to connect your project to a plethora of web services. You can visually code workflows connected to your favorite web services and your existing cloud service using their applets system. It adds an extra layer of functionality to your IoT projects.

Arduino API Libraries

Working with APIs directly using Arduino API libraries can provide even fewer layers of services and more control. Take, for instance, the Arduino Slack API and the Arduino YouTube API. Both libraries were created by Brian Lough and provide a great starting point for developing your projects.

While connecting your project to the cloud can be exhilarating, it’s vital to remember the importance of secure connections. Ensure that your endpoints are secure, never share your login credentials, and always maintain a private key.

IoT Project Ideas

1. Home Automation System: With the use of a simple WiFi microcontroller, you could set up a system to control appliances, lights, and even your thermostat from anywhere in the world. Combine this with a platform like Adafruit IO to visualize your energy consumption and devise smarter ways to save.
2. Plant Monitoring System: Using sensors to detect soil moisture, temperature, and light conditions, you can ensure your plants are in their ideal environment. The data can be logged on ThingSpeak or Arduino Cloud, giving you a clear overview of your plant’s health and letting you know when to water or adjust lighting.
3. Smart Weather Station: Connect temperature, humidity, and pressure sensors to create your own local weather station. Feed the data to the cloud and set up alerts for specific conditions.
4. IoT Alarm Clock: Design an alarm clock that checks your calendar and adjusts wake-up times accordingly or syncs with traffic conditions for your morning commute.
5. CheerLights Globe: A step further from our CheerLights LED project, create a CheerLights globe that represents different regions’ colors and displays the global trends in real-time.
6. Slack Status Updater: For those who use Slack, build a physical Slack status updater with a rotary switch. Set different statuses, such as “In a meeting,” “Lunch break,” or “On a call” and update your Slack status directly from your desk.
7. YouTube Subscriber Counter: This could be a fun project for content creators. Build a live counter using Arduino YouTube API that updates with your latest subscriber numbers.

I hope all of this piqued your interest in IoT and showed you how easy it can be to get started with the right projects and tools. Whether it’s lighting up LEDs with CheerLights or building a temperature monitor, there’s an IoT project that’s right for you.

For additional resources, tips, or to share your progress, please join us on our Discord server. Let’s learn and explore the exciting world of IoT together!

And, everything is better with a demo.

John has shared the Arduino CheerLights code on GitHub. John has shared additional demos for single RGB LEDs and examples for FastLED animations. You can download the code, modify it, and build your own real-time CheerLights display. Just Tweet John a photo of your CheerLights when you finish your project. Thanks, John.

The Raspberry Pi Pico W sits on the back of the Galactic Unicorn, connects to your Wi-Fi network, gets the latest time and CheerLights color, and displays the time and color on a massive grid of RGB pixels. Self-proclaimed maker and warranty voider, Tinkering Rocks, also created a custom frame and acrylic diffuser grill to complete the finish of the project.

Download the MicroPython code and SVG files on GitHub to make your own CheerClock. Thanks for sharing, Tinkering Rocks!

MicroPython

To make the Raspberry Pi Pico W do something, you need to give it some instructions. One way to do it is to use MicroPython. MicroPython is an efficient subset of the Python 3 programming language tailored for microcontrollers like the Raspberry Pi Pico W.

Install Thonny

Now, we need to do some configuration. Click on View and enable Files.

Additionally, we need to tell Thonny that we will be controlling the Raspberry Pi Pico W. Click Tools and then Options. Select the Interpreter tab and select MicroPython (Rasberry Pi Pico).

Now, plug in the Raspberry Pi Pico W to your computer while holding the BOOTSEL button.

Find your Raspberry Pi Pico W in your folder explorer and copy over the appropriate UF2 file. The appropriate file is determined if the Pico is standalone or hooked up to something like the Galactic Unicorn from Pimoroni. The Pico will reboot.

If everything goes well, Thonny should show you that it is connected to the Raspberry Pi Pico W.

Wi-Fi

We have MicoPython running on the device. We have Thonny running on our PC. We are ready for the fun stuff. All of the fun stuff is on the internet so we need to connect our Raspberry Pi Pico W to Wi-Fi. The Pico requires a 2.4Ghz connection.

Add a new file to the Pico called, “WIFI_CONFIG.py”.

Enter this code in the new file and click save. This will create a new file on your Pico that contains your Wi-Fi credentials and shared among your projects that need to connect to the internet.

SSID = "change"
PSK = "change"
COUNTRY = "US"

In the same way that you created the Wi-Fi config file, create a new file called, “network_manager.py” with this code, and click Save.

Okay… we have done a lot of configuration at this point, so let’s test the Wi-Fi connection. I created a quick “network_test.py” script to set up a Wi-Fi connection based on your Wi-Fi settings. Once connected, the script tries to read data from the ThingSpeak CheerLights channel. If the test is successful, you should see a local IP address and the latest CheerLights HEX color code.

CheerLights

So, the idea behind CheerLights is to keep a global network of multicolored lights in sync with each other. Anyone at any time can set the color and all of the connected lights on CheerLights set their color to match. To set the color of the CheerLights network, you can tweet to @CheerLights to mention a color name or use our Discord server CheerLights bot.

To build a CheerLights display, you need a device to get the latest color from CheerLights or from an IoT platform like ThingSpeak or ADafruit IO, parse the data, and set itself to that color. If your network settings are working, you are in good shape to get your display working.

I recommend using a Raspberry Pi Pico W board connected to the Galactic Unicorn from Pimoroni. It is a wonderful display of 500+ LEDs, a speaker, and a Raspberry Pi Pico W bolted right on the back.

The brains of the Galactic Unicorn from Pimoroni is the Raspberry Pi Pico W board. The Pico is what connects to the Wi-Fi and controls the pixels on the display. I spent some time making a straightforward script to get the color and light up the display. I munged code from Hel Gibbons. Thanks for the inspiration. I am still working on new examples and stability. Follow my code updates on GitHub and check in on our Discord server.

Resources

• CheerLights API documentation
• Pimoroni Pico files
• CheerLights Raspberry Pi Pico W files

Simon shared the details of his CheerLights project on our Discord server. Simon has built a project that takes CheerLights messages from MQTT and put them in a Redis Stream to have a timestamped history. Then, a Raspberry Pi with a Pimoroni Unicorn Hat will consume the messages and set the color of some NeoPixel lights. The project turned out great and shows off the capabilities of Redis and MQTT for IoT messaging. CheerLights is a great way to get started with IoT and learn some of the basics.

You can catch a recording of the live stream on Twitch to learn how to connect Redis Streams to the Pimoroni Unicorn Hat. The code to make everything work is on GitHub.

Les illuminated the pumpkin using NeoPixel and the background color is set by CheerLights. Les uses the very nimble Raspberry Pi Pico W as the controller. The code running on the controller is based on CircuitPython and is really straightforward for anyone to get started with programming microcontrollers.

The results are gorgeous, I mean scary.

Check out Les Pounder‘s tutorial on the Tom’s Hardware website.

thingspeak_data = webread("http://api.thingspeak.com/channels/1417/field/2/last.json");
color = thingspeak_data.field2

I used this code for the MATLAB Central Coding Contest to create cool images in 280 characters or less. I use the latest CheerLights color to set the color of the night sky in my Starry Night image.

And, just in time for Halloween, I created a CheerLights-inspired pumpkin illuminated with the latest CheerLights color… FearLights! If hit “Remix” on my code and re-run it, you will likely get a slightly different pumpkin. It has been fun to play with.

MATLAB users have created over 480 awesome images using very little MATLAB code. Check out the gallery of images at MATLAB Central.

This is a fun twist on building a display for the latest color of CheerLights. Stuff some LEDs into something spooky. How about a glass skull from Pimoroni?

I have been watching some recent tweets go by tagging Pimoroni and CheerLights in them. The tweets were all photos of this skull. I investigated.

I found out that Pimoroni created an awesome kit (with or without the aforementioned skull) to build a CheerLights display using their Wireless Plasma Stick and a string of NeoPixel LED lights. The Wireless Plasma device is based on the Raspberry Pi Pico W and is able to drive WS2812 LED strips.

What an awesome kit and device for controlled LED strip lights! I am looking forward to getting my own Plasma Stick 2040 W to see what I can build with it.

Check out more FearLights projects on the CheerLights site!

The YouTube livestream is scheduled for October 25, 2022 at 2pm EST. Fresh from Maker Faire Rome, this week we are joined by self-taught maker and tinkerer Jorvon Moss. Moss has created a plethora of projects, including a number of wearable robotic companions. Check out the livestream to learn more about Moss’ projects and workflows.

Also, you will get to see a Tom’s Hardware Halloween CheerLights display. I hope we get to control it while the livestream is going on!

Update

Les gave a demo of the Tom’s Hardware sign with a pumpkin “o” that supports CheerLights! The demo was live so we had fun changing the color on the livestream.

The Mathematica code uses the HTTPRequest function to get data from the ThingSpeak API, parse for the color, and set the color of a shape. Nick posted the Mathematica code on GitHub for anyone to try out.

I love how people find a way to use the CheerLights project and integrate it with what they have. We have seen Commodore 64 programs to buildings showing off the CheerLights color. CheerLights is also a great way to learn how to get data from an IoT API and do something with it. Once you know how to do CheerLights, you can build other cool things.

Thanks, Nick!

I was really taken aback by how awesome WLED is for creating interactive LED light displays. WLED is an open-source project created by Aircookie and hosted on GitHub. It’s active with over 9,700 stars. They have thought of everything. I looked over the release notes and the project keeps growing, adding support for more devices, and solving the hard parts of building light displays. WLED lets you get to the fun!

I took out an ESP32 board and connected it to my PC, opened install.wled.me in Chrome, clicked Install, selected the right COM port, and waited for a minute. When WLED finished installing, I entered my Wi-Fi credentials and opened up its control interface. I hooked up a set of WS2812B LED strip lights on GPIO2 (IO16). On the control interface, I clicked around, changed the color wheel, and then found the effects tab. Oh, my. I spent an hour trying out the effects. I wasn’t writing any code. I wasn’t constantly recompiling my project. I was just having fun creating animations.

Now, to make WLED-connected lights work with CheerLights… What I want is for WLED to get the latest color from the CheerLights MQTT server and set the color of the light display accordingly. This is pretty easy with a small config change.

• Click Config, and then Sync Interfaces.
• Under the MQTT settings, enter “mqtt.cheerlights.com” for the Broker.
• Add “wled” as the Device Topic
• Leave the default value for the Client ID.
• Click Save.

Give your device a power cycle and the device will subscribe to the CheerLights MQTT broker. When the color changes, the WLED-connected lights will change to match in real time!

Thanks to Andy Stanford-Clark and Christopher Stapels for some weekend and evening hacking and testing.

Stuart Patterson, maker extraordinaire, figured out the Bluetooth protocol that the lights are using to set the colors on the light. You probably figured out what happened next… Stuart connected the light to the latest CheerLights color using a Bluetooth bridge built from an ESP32 microcontroller. The ESP32 has both a Wi-Fi radio and a Bluetooth radio and is the perfect device to bridge the CheerLights API to the Lumin+ light. Stuart shared the source code and a video tutorial so you can replicate this build.

Here are some features of this project:

• Real-time color updates using MQTT
• Easy Wi-Fi setup using AutoConnect library for ESP32
• Wi-Fi to Bluetooth bridging (a great project for other Bluetooth things around your house)

I really like how plug-and-play this project is. For $5, you could build a CheerLights display for someone in your life.

Thanks for sharing, Stuart!

The CheerLights client code for the M5StickC is available on GitHub.

The M5StickC PLUS ESP32-PICO Mini IoT Development Kit is a great device to get started with IoT and also great for building anything you can think of. The tiny, tiny formfactor of the M5StickC should inspire some new project ideas for you. You can use what you know with the Arduino Development Platform or use Development Platform UIFlow and MicroPython.

Here’s what you get built into the M5StickC PLUS:

• ESP32-PICO-D4
• BLE 4.2
• Wi-Fi
• Six-axis IMU
• Red LED
• IR transmitter
• Microphone
• Passive Buzzer
• RTC
• Buttons
• LCD
• Lipo Battery
• Extendable Socket

For those getting started with the M5StickC, check out this video from Hackster. It’s a great introduction and helped me get going with this plucky device.

Thanks for sharing your project on the #projects channel on the CheerLights Discord server.

Here’s how to use the CheerLights bot:

• Join the CheerLights Discord Server and introduce yourself!
• Send this message: /cheerlights – This will return the latest CheerLights color
• Try sending: /cheerlights blue – This will set CheerLights to blue. Feel free to try the other supported colors too.
• And, it you need help, send /cheerlights help

Thanks again, Jeff. We appreciate your support and contribution to the project. Thanks for helping us grow the community. Cheers!

And, they are right, you can make giant candy canes from some hardware store parts and wrap them with LED lights to create a CheerLights display!

[Kieran Murphy] shared their project on Twitter and also shared the details of the build on their blog. The project uses an ESP8266 microcontroller connected to the Home Assistant project. From there, the candy canes are finished with WS2812B waterproof LED strips and a huge power supply. On the software side, everything flows together using Node-RED.

I love to see how fast people can join the CheerLights project and build something new with what they have. I asked them on Twitter about some more details. [elyob] is using an ESP8266 microcontroller running ESPHome connected to some NeoPixel light strips. They use Node-RED to connect to the CheerLights MQTT server to get the latest color.

Node-RED is a graphical programming tool for wiring together hardware devices, APIs, and online services. The CheerLights flow passes text from tweets that contain either “#CheerLights” or “@CheerLights” and looks for color names. When there are matches, the flow sends the colors to our supported IoT platforms. Node-RED is helping people of all skills build new applications and take advantage of event-based applications with no-code and low-code.

And, while we were at it, we made some other fixes and updates:

CheerLights now supports long tweets. Twitter used to support 140 characters and over the years, they expanded to 280 characters. CheerLights was still processing the first 140 characters. We would miss color mentions in long tweets. We now have that fixed, thanks to an assist by Andy Piper, a developer advocate at Twitter. We can now catch “red” at the very end of this long tweet.

CheerLights handles multiple colors mentioned in the tweet. You can mention multiple colors in one tweet. We take each color send them along and add a short delay in between. This is a good reason to use MQTT for your CheerLights display. Your lights will change as the colors get processed instead of having your lights continually ask for the latest color. Check out the latest CheerLights API documentation for how to subscribe to CheerLights color using MQTT.

Learn more about CheerLights: Build, API, and News.

In November 2011, I went to Lowes in Uniontown, PA in the United States to look for some deals. Lowes is a home improvement store and they just had moved out all of the summer/fall items like grills and patio furniture to make way for holiday things: big inflatable lawn decorations, Christmas trees, and Christmas lights. The wide array of Christmas lights caught my eye and I noticed a new type of lights from GE. These lights were the GE G-35 ColorEffects lights featuring an RF remote control to set the color of the 29 feet of string lights at a distance. The box said, “Create a spectacular color effects light show.”

Lowes had the G-35 lights out as a demo and I clicked the remote buttons and loved the effects. They were $89 US. Yikes. I walked away and continued to looked at the discount grills. My mind wondered and kept coming back to the lights. My neighbors had already put up their holiday lights and had a music show. I kept imagining my Christmas lights synchronized with their lights. Then, I kept the thought going. What if our block was synchronized? What if the entire city had their lights blinking at the same time with the same color? What if The World!? The internet could keep lights in sync!

This was my lightbulb moment, pun intended.

I took out my phone and Googled, “g-35 coloreffects arduino.” I got a few hits. I found a few folks who hacked the RF remote control, determined the signal used by GE, and shared examples of how the lights were controlled by the Arduino microcontroller.

At this point, I was 100% certain that I could get these lights controlled over the internet. I bought two sets of the GE G-35 ColorEffects lights and the rest was history. Wait, wait, wait. Not so fast. This is just the beginning of the story.

Modding Lights

I had two choices to control the GE lights: bypass the inline controller with an Arduino or create an RF transmitter that could send the control signals. The library that I found during my online research bypassed the controlled and used an Arduino to send the control signals. I had all of those parts handy so that is the direction that I went in. I even made a long explainer video about how I did it. I bypassed the signal wire from the GE controller and connected the signal and ground to the Arduino. The Arduino would send the control signal to the lights instead of the remote control. Then, I used the ioBridge Web Gateway to take color commands from a web API. All of the parts were in place to control the lights from the internet. I had a lot of fun controlling the lights from a webpage and I sent around the link. My friends were controlling my lights strung around my room.

Synchronizing Lights

To make the challenge of synchronizing lights a bit simpler, I decided to see if I could get my lights and my friends lights to stay the same color. So, when I changed my color, their lights changed to the same color. I used ThingSpeak to pull this off. ThingSpeak is an IoT platform that I created the year before. In my life ThingSpeak was a hammer and everything was a nail. I was always looking for ways to use ThingSpeak and I made it work. I created ThingSpeak Channel #1417 and used the channel to save a color name. My lights and my friend’s lights would check the ThingSpeak channel for the color and set themselves to that color. Now, I could synchronize the colors of individual lights.

Controlling Lights

I really wanted millions of lights staying in sync with each other. That’s what I kept imagining, so I thought of using Twitter. What if someone could tweet a color and that color would control all of the connected lights? Yes! That was the last piece of the puzzle. I went to Twitter and created a new username: CheerLights.

The idea behind the name CheerLights is the idea that cheer spreads like I was thinking that a color would do as lights changed all around the world.

I wrote a little service in Ruby that listened to the Twitter Firehouse and filtered out all of the tweets looking for ones that mentioned “cheerlights” somewhere in the text. This service became TweetControl, an app that used to be on the ThingSpeak platform. Then, I looked for a color name and if one matched, I saved the color in the CheerLights ThingSpeak channel.

I sent the first CheerLights tweet on November 30, 2011. This tweet changed exactly one set of lights to blue. This is where it started.

Building a Community

The only problem at this point was that I was the only person with a CheerLights display. I had three followers on Twitter and some friends who expressed interest. To get the project going, I did a few things to build a community:

• Sent 30 direct messages to people who might want to join in the project
• Created a handful of explainer videos and posted them on YouTube
• Created a website
• Published tutorials
• Open sourced all of the code on GitHub

These activities helped a community to start. I wanted to make it easy to join, so I had to teach, create awareness, and answer every question that I could on the Arduino, Adafruit, ioBridge, and ThingSpeak forums.

I introduced the CheerLights project to HackPGH, a makerspace in Pittsburgh, PA in early December 2011. I gave a presentation about the CheerLights project and helped the members build a set of lights. I was lucky to recruit a couple of people to build their own light displays and they linked their lights to mine using the same public ThingSpeak channel.

The big moment came on December 3, 2011 when Matt Richardson wrote an article on the MAKE Magazine website. Matt wrote about the project, linked to the website, and shared my teaser video. This really helped get the word out and I soon was gain more followers on Twitter and I was getting messages about new CheerLights displays that were joining the project.

I also went to a Ruby meetup and talked about the Twitter Ruby Firehouse Listener. project at the heart of CheerLights Someone from that group built a webpage that listened to the CheerLights color and set the background color of the page to it. They didn’t know about hardware and Arduino, but they did know a lot about web applications. This was also a big moment in the project. It got me to think about other ways to be informed of the CheerLights color. Other people created an iPhone app that displayed the color, an Android app, Chrome Extension, and even a Commodore 64 program. People really surprised me and that is one of the many gifts of a community.

Keeping My Energy Up

One thing that I reflect on is the idea of sustaining your interest in a project. It is easy to give up or just lose interest especially in the early parts of a project. I sent out a tweet from the ThingSpeak account on December 2, 2011 to introduce the CheerLights project. I got one like on that tweet by Andy Piper (who now works at Twitter). And, if you know me, you know how much I love Twitter projects. That single like really helped me keep going. In a project lasting over 10 years, there are lots of little moments that help keep you going. Thank you for the first one, Andy.

How Can You Help?

We are always looking for new people to join CheerLights. You don’t have to be a hardware expert to take part. Your ideas and your energy to get the word out are also very helpful.

• Join the CheerLights Discord Server and share your projects and ideas and learn from others
• Contribute examples to GitHub
• Subscribe to the CheerLights blog for news, projects, and inspiration
• Follow CheerLights on Twitter
• Tweet @CheerLights with a color name to keep the lights changing
• Make something new with CheerLights and surprise all of us!

What’s Next?

I have been working on a few new things that I will be discussing with folks on the CheerLights Discord Server . But, the main thing that I have been working on is some training materials for learning IoT with CheerLights. I have some introductory course material for helping people learn IoT concepts by learning about CheerLights. I also teach how to take the basic idea of CheerLights and make something new.

Thanks to the Community

I would like to offer a special thanks to Andy Leer from that HackPGH night, Paul from Digital Misery for publishing the G-35 Arduino library at a timely moment, Andy Piper for your encouragement along the way, Matt Richardson for jumpstarting this project with a blog post, and to Andy Stanford-Clark for your continued support and promotion of CheerLights around the world!

And, a big thanks to the community. I love seeing people learn IoT, hardware, Arduino, and programming with the CheerLights project. I also love to see the creative ways people join CheerLights.

We are all connected.

I love this project. Thanks for sharing GeekMomProjects! This is a great way to learn some coding and IoT without having to get into hardware. And, it looks like a great project for their Python Club.

Ellie the Dinosaur resides on Chale Bay Farm, a luxury five-star self catering apartments nestled among rolling fields with stunning views on the south-west of the Isle of Wight.

We found out about Ellie the Dinosaur on Twitter. Thanks for mentioning us and sharing a photo of this colossal CheerLights display.

CheerLights.getColor(callbackFunctionName);

The CheerLights JavaScript Client Library is hosted at GitHub under the open source MIT License. Go forth and build… and star and fork.

I introduced the CheerLights project to HackPGH, a makerspace in Pittsburgh, PA. The first set of lights were a modded GE Color Effects lights, an Arduino, and an ioBridge Web Gateway.

I was lucky to recruit a couple of people to build their own light displays and they linked their lights to mine. I started getting the word out more and more people joined the project and the big moment was when Matt Richardson wrote an article on the MAKE Magazine website. CheerLights really took off after Matt’s story!

The idea behind CheerLights is that you take a light that can change color and keep all of the lights synchronized with each no matter where they are located. So, if my light turns red, the rest of the interconnected lights also turn red. The mechanism to control the lights around the world is Twitter. A tweet to @CheerLights along with mentioning a color will set the color of the lights. This opens up the control to virtually anyone one around the world.

Some Inspiration

How Can You Help?

We are always looking for new people to join CheerLights. You don’t have to be a hardware expert to take part. Your ideas and your energy to get the word out are also very helpful.

• Join the CheerLights Discord Server and share your projects and ideas and learn from others
• Contribute examples to GitHub
• Subscribe to the CheerLights blog for news, projects, and inspiration
• Follow CheerLights on Twitter
• Tweet @CheerLights with a color name to keep the lights changing

Thanks to the Community

I would like to offer a special thanks to Andy Leer from that HackPGH night, Matt Richardson for jumpstarting this project and to Andy Stanford-Clark for your continued support and promotion of the project! And, a big thanks to the community. I love seeing people learn IoT, hardware, Arduino, and programming with the CheerLights project. I also love to see the creative way people join CheerLights.

We are all connected.

CheerLights Widget Links

• Solid Color Background: https://widgets.cheerlights.com/color.html
• CheerLights Logo: https://widgets.cheerlights.com/logo.html
• FearLights Logo: https://widgets.cheerlights.com/fearlights.html
• Snow: https://widgets.cheerlights.com/snow.html
• Lanterns: https://widgets.cheerlights.com/lanterns.html
• Leaves: https://widgets.cheerlights.com/leaves.html
• Aurora: https://widgets.cheerlights.com/aurora.html
• Particle: https://widgets.cheerlights.com/particle.html
• Digital Clock: https://widgets.cheerlights.com/clock.html

WordPress

Use the “Shortcode” block in the editor to embed these widgets on your WordPress site.

[iframe src="proxy.php?url=https://widgets.cheerlights.com/logo.html" width="100%" height="200"]

We also have a few other video feeds on the CheerLights Live page. This is useful to see if your CheerLights display is in sync with other ones.

I asked Andy about what he recommends for VR. He recommends the Oculus Quest 2.

VR is going to be HUGE. (IMHO, LoL)

Andy Stanford-Clark

The combination of virtual reality and the physical world is compelling to me. In fact, if you take a closer look, Andy also adds CheerLights to his virtual world. This means, three spheres of influence are acting at once: Virtual, Social, and Physical. Everything is converging. This is an interesting time for our technological adolescence. Let’s hope we get to grow up.

Cheers.

ADafruit’s guide teaches you about the CircuitPython LED Animation library and how to create dazzling animations to show off the latest CheerLights color.

Check out Cheerlights Holiday Wreath with Animations guide on the Adafruit Learn Platform.

The MagTag also includes four NeoPixels on the top! So, you know where this is going… Adafruit created a demo to show the latest CheerLights color on the E-Ink display and change the colors of the NeoPixels.

Check out the demo from LadyAda.

You can try this demo out right now if you have a MarTag. Adafruit has posted the CheerLights code to GitHub using CircuitPython. The MagTag is really popular and often sells out on Adafruit’s store, so add your email to be notified when it’s back in stock.

CheerLights is a network of colored lights all synchronized with each other. Every year, more and more people link their CheerLights display with the CheerLights feed. To change everyone’s lights, send a tweet that mentions @cheerlights and a color.

We are all connected.

And, I just this quote from the community announcemnt.

“Cheerlights can be a fun way to get help you feel connected when the world has been so isolated.”

–Hasty1, member of the Hubitat Community

We agree. We are all connected. Thanks for releasing the driver!

You know what else makes them awesome? They have a set of CheerLights outside of their inn and lots of Christmas lights. The CheerLights makes their lights interactive and synchronized with other people’s lights around the world. Just tweet a color to @CheerLights and watch the lights change!

Follow The Bolingey Inn Lights on Twitter and visit CheerLights.com to learn how to build your own.

Liz has built a CheerLights Lamp using JavaScript, Sketch, and AE. This lamp stays synchronized with the latest CheerLights color. She uses her CheerLights-based projects for inspiration for Smart Home projects and inspiration at hackathons.

Liz Myers is a UX Designer and has helped Amazon, Microsoft, Vodafone, and RS Components deliver large-scale web and mobile projects. Her passion for smart things and smart home lead her to CheerLights and to other research areas, such as augmented reality, computer vision, and multi-modal experience

Check out Liz’s work at Myers Design.

Duuh Duuh da da da Duuh Duuh da da da Duuh Duuh dun-dun-dun-duuuuh…

Julie Stainbrook has created an R2D2 Lamp that is live streaming on Twitch! The killer feature is that you can also control the lamp while you watch it and even set it to CheerLights mode.

Watch and control an R2D2 Lamp on Twitch

Right now on Twitch, you could watch people playing video games , but I would rather watch an R2D2 Lamp next to the Death Star (not to scale). While you are watching the lamp, press some of the controls to change the color of the lamp. Visit http://r2d2.hyperjoule.io to see the embeded Twitch stream and use the controls.

Get the code on GitHub

Julie has posted a full explanation of the project on her hyperjoule.io website and has all of the code available on GitHub.

Why MQTT?

MQTT allows for real-time subscription to the CheerLights feed. When someone changes the color, the color gets published immediately over the “cheerlights” topic. MQTT also allows for your devices to stay connected versus polling the API for changes.

I choose to use Eclipse Mosquitto, an open source MQTT broker, as the basis of the MQTT server.

Fun Fact

Andy Stanford-Clark and Arlen Nipper invented the MQTT standard in 1999! They had to create a new protocol for connecting oil pipelines over unreliable networks.

After searching around for some examples, I didn’t find any up-to-date code. I put together example Arduino code using the ThingSpeak library by MathWorks and the NeoPixel library by Adafruit. This code takes advantage of a “secrets.h” file so you don’t accidentally give away your Wi-Fi credentials if you share the project.

Check out the ESP8266 NeoPixel Strip project on GitHub.

It was a matter of time for someone to add CheerLights support. David posted his code that extends the project to add CheerLights mode when the Particle Christmas Tree is not in animation mode. Thanks, David!

Download the code on GitHub.

The project got blogged over at Adafruit as part of their #IoTuesday blog series. Check out Jeff’s Twitter to follow his project development.

CONTROLLING CHEERLIGHTS

To control CheerLights, send a tweet to @cheerlights or include “cheerlights” somewhere in your message with the name of a color.

EXAMPLE TWEET

@CheerLights Paint the town red

This will cause a chain reaction and all of the CheerLights displays and apps will change their color to red.

THE COLORS OF CHEERLIGHTS

• red (#FF0000)
• green (#008000)
• blue (#0000FF)
• cyan (#00FFFF)
• white (#FFFFFF)
• oldlace / warmwhite (#FDF5E6)
• purple (#800080)
• magenta (#FF00FF)
• yellow (#FFFF00)
• orange (#FFA500)
• pink (#FFC0CB)

You can check previous tweets using Twitter Search.

For Alex’s CheerLights-connected penguin project, he used a Raspberry Pi Zero W, 8GB or 16GB SD Card, Pimoroni Blinkt LED board, and something to light up.

If you are new to CheerLights on the Raspberry Pi, don’t worry. Alex takes you through the whole process of setting up the operating system to installing Docker. Check out Alex’s tutorial, Holiday lights that harmonize around the globe, on his blog.

CheerLights is a shareware program that uses a Tweet-controlled app from ThingSpeak to change the color of a light to a ROYGBIV when a color command is sent via Twitter. Tweets can be sent from anywhere in the world to anywhere this program runs, reinforcing the power of the Internet of Things (IoT) to connect individuals and devices around the globe.

In order to join the CheerLights project, students had to build a display. SparkFun Electronics donated a Particle Photon, breadboard and wall charger, and mentors from local colleges, Hands On Training and Aeris, a leading IoT company, visited the school to teach students the basic wiring and technical skills that would transform those components and some LEDs into a gorgeous interactive light display!

A group of students and mentors came up with a circuit design for each pre-cut panel, and the panels were then assembled into one display that will live on at the school, reminding students how we are all connected when the colors change. Send out a tweet with @cheerlights and any phrase with a color to change it for them!

Try it yourself! Build your own CheerLights display and spread the cheer!

To build your own CheerLights hat, gather some parts like a Particle Photon, NeoPixels, wire, and some tools. Then, follow Jill’s tutorial on Instructables.

Here’s a video of the CheerLights hat in action:

Demo

Parts

• SleepyLights Robot
• Particle Photon
• IR LED
• 330Ω resistor
• Breadboard

Source Code

The code for the Particle Photon is really straightforward. The gist of the code is that the Particle Photon will request the latest CheerLights color from ThingSpeak. If the color matches one of the defined colors, the Photon will transmit the IR code to the robot just like the IR remote. The robot will change color when CheerLights changes color.

For more information, visit Nursery Hacks and download the source code on GitHub.

One way to celebrate is to have a CheerLights cake. Just tweet your favorite color (colour) to CheerLights and the Raspberry Pi Cake changes color! Check out GitHub for the source on how to change the color of these candles using a Raspberry Pi, but of course.

You can change these colours from home tweet #Piparty #cheerlights colour ! pic.twitter.com/utCSZniPz6

— annette remion (@shephallmassive) March 4, 2017

Congrats on your 5th birthday!

CheerLights is an “Internet of Things” project created by Hans Scharler where people volunteer to synchronise their lights all across the world to one colour. In a truly democratic fashion, the colour changes by anyone sending a tweet with a colour + #cheerlights.

Learn how to build your own Wi-Fi controlled potted tree at loads.pickle.me.uk.

Robert added a new feature to capture multiple colors in one tweet by taking advantage of functions supported by the Particle cloud.

.@scharler this is what red, white, and blue @cheerlights looks like @MathWorks pic.twitter.com/JRry6DHTqS

— ThingSpeak (@thingspeak) December 7, 2016

They are beautiful!

The Christmas tree uses the Adafruit HUZZAH ESP8266 Wi-Fi board to make the connection to ThingSpeak to get the latest CheerLights color.

Have you ever wanted to tweet at your Christmas tree to change its color? Well now you can! Follow this guide to build a set of Christmas lights which will connect to CheerLights. Anyone can tweet @cheerlights with a color, and all CheerLights-connected devices all over the world will update to that color.

Check out the project on Instructables.

All of the instructions on how to build this project using an ESP8266 and NeoPixel lights are on Instructables.

Marc has built a really cool way to display the latest CheerLights color. And, if you want to change Marc’s color (and the other 1000’s lights), just send a Tweet mentioning CheerLights and a color name. Marc has also published a full tutorial on how to use the Adafruit Feather HUZZAH to read the latest color from the CheerLights ThingSpeak Channel.

[via Adafruit Learn]

Colin had the idea to use a Raspberry Pi as a Bluetooth gateway. Since the Raspberry Pi is connected to your network and supports Bluetooth, the Raspberry Pi can check the CheerLights color and send it to the Playbulb using Bluetooth just like an app on your phone.

Details on how to use the Playbulb Candle with the Raspberry Pi and CheerLights are available on Colin’s blog.

Update

There is now an official Python Package for the CheerLights API. The CheerLights team maintains this package, which is officially supported.

Voting is open to the public. If you want to support your favorite IoT project, please vote at Postscapes.

Thanks for the nomination! And, thanks to everyone who joined CheerLights last year. It was huge!

The L3D Cube uses the Particle Photon so you can remotely program and control your 3D LED cube. The code for CheerLights is currentyl located at Pastebin and will be shared with the CubeTube.org community.

The LedBorg is a bright RGB LED that you can control with the GPIO of the Raspberry Pi. To get the LED to illuminate the latest CheerLights color, use their library called CheerBorg. This is a driver-free library for the Raspberry Pi to read the latest CheerLights color from the API and set the color of the LedBorg to the same.

Using the LedBorg, you can creatively display the latest CheerLights color by setting something on top of the LedBorg to diffuse the color. @vwillcox is showing the latest CheerLights color by illuminating a Wales Crystal.

Check out CheerBorg at the PiBorg.org website to learn more.

The nose color is created by controlling a Neopixel and connected to CheerLights by a Particle Photon. It may be the world’s first reincheer!

Find all of the project details on GitHub.

The CheerLights Cast made its debut at the ThingMonk conference and lots of people sent Tweets controlling the color of Dr. Lucy’s cast.

For more information, check out Dr. Lucy’s blog post at element14.

The project uses a strip of NeoPixels, a serial MP3 player, and an Arduino to create a multicolored lightsaber.

Check Instructables for more information about how to build your own CheerLights Lightsaber.

The video features the CheerLights trees at the MathWorks headquarters in Natick, MA. The lights on the trees are 40 meters of Adafruit NeoPixels and connected to the Internet with the Particle Photon.

The Twitter Trees are linked to CheerLights and allow anyone to control the lights at Deanna Rose Farmstead from your car or anywhere while watching the display and animations. A tweet to CheerLights with a color will turn the rightmost tree to that color and new tweets will move the color left. The idea is great. You can watch your color for a little longer as other people around the world change the color.

“CheerLights does more than just change the trees you see at Deanna Rose. Each tweet you make using the CheerLights tag changes more than 10,000 sites around the world all listening to the CheerLights feed,” said Mark Callegari. “Similarly, our trees are listening to the CheerLights feed so not only will you see your own color changes, but also changes from around the globe.”

Check out the Facebook page to learn more about the really impressive display at Deanna Rose Farmstead.

Here’s some quick MATLAB code to read in the latest color from CheerLights:

latestCheer = thingSpeakRead(1417, 'outputFormat', 'table');
currentColor = latestCheer.LastCheerLightsCommand