infinity-cube-lamp

Firmware for a lamp with an RGB LED strip, running on an ESP8266 (NodeMCU v2). The strip is controlled with an infrared remote, and the firmware updates itself from GitHub Releases.

The finished lamp (LEDs off).

Hardware

• ESP8266 NodeMCU v2
• RGB LED strip driven directly by three PWM pins (e.g. through MOSFETs)
• IR receiver
• Classic 24-button IR remote with colored buttons

Wiring (can be changed in include/config.h):

Signal	GPIO
Red	4
Green	12
Blue	5
IR receiver	14 (D5)

Controls

A printable A5 user manual in Czech is in docs/manual-a5.png. Its source is docs/manual-a5.html.

Button	Action
ON / OFF	turn the strip on / off (ON restores the last color)
VOLUME UP / DOWN	brightness in 10 % steps (10 to 100 %)
R, G, B, W	red, green, blue, white (mode 1 only)
other color buttons	shades by row, see COLOR_BUTTONS (mode 1 only)
SMOOTH	switch between mode 1 and mode 2
FLASH	show the active mode: 3 yellow blinks = mode 1, 3 green blinks = mode 2

The STROBE and FADE buttons do nothing yet.

Modes

• Mode 1 (manual) – the color is set with the remote.
• Mode 2 (indicator) – the lamp downloads INDICATOR_URL every 5 s and shows the color from the rgb field of the response, e.g. {"color": "green", "rgb": [0, 255, 0]}. ON/OFF and brightness still work.

After startup the lamp is in mode 2 if the URL answers, otherwise in mode 1. Without internet only mode 1 is available: pressing SMOOTH blinks yellow 3 times and the lamp stays in mode 1. If the download fails while in mode 2, the lamp blinks red until the next successful download. The manual color is kept while mode 2 is active.

Configuration

Everything is in include/config.h: pins, PWM frequency, brightness steps, default and boot color, the color table for the buttons, the indicator URL, poll interval and mode blink colors. Button codes are in include/IRController.h.

WiFi

Create include/secrets.h (it is in .gitignore):

#define SECRET_SSID "wifi-name"
#define SECRET_PASS "wifi-password"

On the first upload over USB the credentials are saved to EEPROM. Firmware built by GitHub Actions has no secrets.h and uses the saved credentials. To change WiFi, edit secrets.h and upload the firmware over USB again.

Build and upload

pio run -t upload
pio device monitor

On startup the strip glows orange while the device connects to WiFi and checks for updates, then switches to the default color. The firmware also prints its version and the result of the update check to the serial monitor.

Source layout

• src/main.cpp – setup() and loop() only
• src/Led.cpp – PWM output, brightness, color, boot color
• src/IrRemote.cpp – IR receiver and button handling
• src/Mode.cpp – switching between mode 1 and mode 2, FLASH blinks
• src/Indicator.cpp – downloads the indicator URL and parses the color

Firmware update (OTA)

Uses the esp-ota-updater library. On startup the device checks the latest release and updates itself if a newer version exists.

Releasing a new version:

1. Increase custom_version in platformio.ini.
2. Commit and push to main.
3. GitHub Actions publish a release. The device updates after its next restart.

Do not push a locally changed version in platformio.ini unless you want to publish a release.