DIY Ambilight

Introduction

I've been using two Lightpack v1 modules connected via USB to my mediacenter box running for years, but after getting a new TV, the old Lightpack setup wasn't big enough anymore. Pretty much all products that can be bought ready-to-use cost way too much, so i deciced to build my own Ambilight clone. As one of the requirements was being able to use it with Kodi (on a Vero 4K+), Enigma (on a VU+ Uno 4K SE) and Android TV (on a Nvidia Shield TV Pro), controlling it via USB was not an option, unless i wanted to move the USB cable between each device whenever i switch to it, so it needed to be something that can be controlled via network.

The very first search result for "ws2812b wifi" is WLED, so i started reading up on what it does and how to use it. The short version: it's a firmware for the wifi-capable ESP8266 board which can control addressable RGB LEDs (commonly referred to as "ws2812b"). And it has support for Hyperion, which is a software that can grab the display output of a video device and convert it to instructions for LED controllers.

WLED

WLED seems to be around for less than two years (as of this writing) but it looks like it is very mature and has lots of features and supports many common protocols already. Using ESP8266 boards also makes it very easy to set up, as those boards cost <$5, can be bought pretty much anywhere and you only need a USB cable to upload new firmware (disclaimer: i've been using them for years, so i may be a bit biased regarding what would be considered "easy to use").

Hyperion

Hyperion was also the software i have been running on my Kodi boxes, as it provided a very reliable video grabber and made it reasonably easy to set up the LED layout, which is something you have to do so Hyperion can covert the rectangular image from the video grabber into a command for the LEDs at the respective positions. (It basically looks at the video image, sees that e.g. the top left corner is red, so it refers to the LED layout you configured because it needs to know which LEDs in the LED strip are mapped to the top left corner, so that it can send a command to turn those red, too.)