ARAsHHH – ESP8266 WS2811/WS2812 LED Controller

A beautiful, lightweight, and rock‑solid Wi‑Fi LED strip controller built for the ESP8266 (D1 Mini).
No cloud, no app – just connect to the ESP’s Wi‑Fi and control your lights from any device’s browser.

✨ Features

• Instant web control – open 192.168.4.1 after connecting to the ARAsHHH Wi‑Fi
• RGB colour picker + separate Red/Green/Blue sliders for fine‑tuning
• Live LED strip preview that mirrors your real LEDs in real time
• 5 built‑in effects – Static, Rainbow, Chase, Breathe, Palette Sweep
• Adjustable brightness, speed, and LED count – all with debounced sliders (no crashes)
• No captive portal headaches – just a simple QR‑code‑friendly access point
• Super lightweight code – stable days without reboot

🛠️ Hardware Requirements

• ESP8266 board (D1 Mini recommended)
• WS2811 / WS2812 / WS2812B LED strip (up to 300 pixels)
• 5 V power supply for the strip (the D1 Mini can be powered via USB, but power the strip separately for many LEDs)
• Jumper wires

🔌 Wiring

D1 Mini (ESP8266)	LED Strip
D4 (GPIO2)	DATA
G (GND)	GND
5V / VIN	VCC (only if strip draws small current, otherwise external 5 V)

⚠️ Important: Connect the LED strip’s GND to the D1 Mini’s GND even if you use a separate power supply.

📦 Required Arduino Libraries

Install via Library Manager (Sketch → Include Library → Manage Libraries):

• Adafruit NeoPixel by Adafruit
• ESP8266WiFi (included in ESP8266 board package)
• ESP8266WebServer (included)

Board setup: In Arduino IDE, select “NodeMCU 1.0 (ESP‑12E Module)” (or equivalent) with default settings.

🚀 Quick Start

1. Download the .ino file from this repository.
2. Open it in Arduino IDE and change these settings if needed:
   • NUM_LEDS – number of LEDs in your strip
   • AP_SSID – the Wi‑Fi name you want (default: ARAsHHH)
3. Upload the sketch to your D1 Mini.
4. Power the D1 Mini and the LED strip.
5. Connect your phone/PC to the Wi‑Fi network ARAsHHH (no password).
6. Open your browser and go to 192.168.4.1.
7. Control your lights!

🎨 Using the Interface

• LED Count slider – set how many pixels your strip has (adjusts instantly)
• Strip preview – shows exactly what the real strip is doing
• Colour picker – pick any colour or use the R/G/B sliders below it
• Effect buttons – tap to switch between effects; the active one lights up
• Brightness & Speed – adjust in real time

All sliders are debounced – rapid dragging won’t overload the ESP and cause restarts.

📱 How to Make It Even Easier (QR Code)

1. Print a QR code that contains http://192.168.4.1.
2. Add a short instruction: “Connect to ARAsHHH, then scan this code.”
3. Users simply scan the code and the browser opens directly to the control page.

🔧 Customisation

You can easily change:

• Wi‑Fi name – edit #define AP_SSID "ARAsHHH" near the top of the sketch
• Wi‑Fi password – set #define AP_PASSWORD "yourpassword" to secure the network
• Default LED count – change #define NUM_LEDS 48 (you can still change it from the UI)
• Default colour – modify strip.Color(255, 0, 0) in staticColor to any RGB value
• Data pin – if you can’t use GPIO2 (D4), change #define LED_PIN 2 to another GPIO number

🧹 Troubleshooting

ESP restarts repeatedly?

• Use a stable 5 V power supply (not just your computer’s USB) – a weak supply can cause brown‑out resets.
• If your strip has many LEDs, power the strip externally and only share ground with the D1 Mini.

Can’t connect to the Wi‑Fi?

• Make sure the D1 Mini is powered and the sketch uploaded successfully.
• The ESP creates an open network – if you don’t see ARAsHHH, check the serial monitor for error messages (baud rate 115200).

Web page doesn’t load?

• Ensure your device is connected to the ARAsHHH Wi‑Fi.
• Try opening http://192.168.4.1 directly (some browsers hide the address bar on captive portals).

📄 License

This project is MIT licensed – feel free to use, modify, and share it.

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Happy tinkering! ✨
If you find this useful, give the repo a ⭐️!