Android Controlled LED Strip (IOIO Powered)

or watch in HD

The Android phone is controlling an LED strip hidden in the vase using a IOIO board with Bluetooth. In this example, the Android phone is running an app which obtains color values from the onboard camera and then in turn matches those colors to the LED strip. We (myself and Ytai) sort of ran out of time on this project but with the sample code, it can easily be expanded to do other things. Here's a few ideas we didn't get to:

    Using the phone accelerometer to change the color patterns, a shake event for example
    Displaying a pattern when receiving a text
    Displaying a pattern when receiving a phone call   
    Displaying a pattern when a friend if nearby via social networking
    Displaying a pattern on specific Twitter keywords

IOIO is a physical computing platform for the Android platform, kind of like Arduino but dedicated to Android and features a small form factor with Bluetooth capability leveraging off the shelf & inexpensive Bluetooth dongles. IOIO was created by Ytai Ben-Tsvi who was my partner on this project, actually Ytai did all the work. I've done a few Arduino projects in the past that also required a PC for the graphical & rich internet application capabilities, it was nice see how one can get rid of the PC and yet still retain these rich capabilities leveraging the Android platform. This opens up many new application possibilities for hobbyists.

The LED strip is digitally addressable meaning each LED (32 in the strip) can be controlled individually. That combined with the Bluetooth IOIO and Android opens up endless interactive lighting schemes.

Materials

• IOIO Board - $50
• RGB LED Strip Addressable from Sparkfun - $45
• Bluetooth Dongle - $5
• Android Device *
• Hookup Wire
• Form factor of your choice for the LED strip(s), vase used in this example
• Android Holidays IOIO App (Android Market link) or here for users without Android Market - free

* Android 2.3.3 and above required for Bluetooth
Android 2.1 to 2.3.2 will support Bluetooth but you'll need to enter the Bluetooth pairing pin on every connection
Android 1.5 and above can use a USB cable connection as opposed to Bluetooth. For USB connections, the "USB debugging" setting (also known as ADB) must be turned on in your Android phone, you'll find this setting under "Settings", "Applications", and "Development".

Step 1: Wiring

The wiring is pretty easy. First and this is very important, look for the connector on the LED strip with an arrow (see the pictures), it should be the strip end with one connector as opposed to the strip end with two connectors. That is the end of the LED strip where you'll connect the 4 wires per the schematic below. The other end of the LED strip (with two connectors) also has a similar connector but you'd use that to daisy chain another LED strip. In this particular case, we're only using one LED strip so we don't need this connector. If this is the case for you, then you can save yourself some time by cutting off that connector (female) and then plugging it into the single connector end (male) and then wire to the IOIO board.

Outside of the DC power source which go to the VIN and GND pins on the IOIO (DC power between 5V and 15V), you'll only need to connect 4 wires on the LED strip to the IOIO.

LED Strip Blue Wire -->    IOIO 5V
LED Strip Black Wire -->  IOIO GND
LED Strip Green Wire --> IOIO Pin 3
LED Strip Red Wire -->    IOIO Pin 4

Comments

[vov35]

hmm... you're running LED strips directly off microcontroller pins? wouldn't it be best to isolate them with transistors?

Regardless, nicely done, I quite like the effect.

[power_tr]

Not like that!
Each LED has its own WS2801 IC and current limiting resistors.

[subrotradeindia]

hi can you provide me detail for some discussion

email: [e-mail]

[alinke]

Hi, all the tech info I have is documented in the instructable, is there any particular area you want more info on

[ytai]

@vov35 the IOIO pins aren't driving the LEDs, only controlling them. The LED strip itself has the drivers.
Only two I/O pins on the IOIO were used: clock and data, both fed from an SPI module.