Long LED strips to track movement

Usermods
1

Hi there.

I caught the fever…

So, I’ve been messing with WLED on ESP32 and find it absolutely amazing! I have an idea for a project, but don’t know if it can be done with what’s currently available. Here goes:

I have a long corridor, but might want to use it in a wider room as well. I’d like LED strips on both (or maybe all) sides and use mm wave, sonar, proximity, or PIR sensors to activate the strips in my proximity in the direction of travel, brightening (variable) 100 - 300 LEDs in front of my position and dimming about the same number of LEDs behind me as I move, before they go completely off. It needs to react to multiple people and changes in direction. Basically, upon entry all LEDs light up at (variable) 20% and the closest (variable) 100 - 300 LEDs light up at (variable) 100% as the next sensor is triggered, the next “group” brightens and the previous group dims. In the case of mm wave or sonar, based on distance, the “traveling group” of variable length moves in front of and behind, in sync with the person moving.

The Corridor has branching corridors, that could be separate channels, and need to light up when entering, or dim and go out when leaving.

Is there some mod out there that can do this?

Thanks for any assistance!

2

Not sure about the programming but rather than a load of PIRs perhaps one the the microwave radar sensors to measure the distance and turn on LEDs based on that.

? Split the LED strip into segments in WLED and control each via Home Assistant ?

3

This sounds like a bunch of PIR sensors, since you want to sense multiple people. If you can run data wires for the sensors, then maybe a RS485 interface would do, else wireless. I’m working on something related for an interactive LED display, with DIY wireless sensors.

4

I use Hubitat at the moment. I realize that HA is more powerful, but I’ve only tried playing around with it, and haven’t had much luck yet. It’s something I want to do at some point, but isn’t a priority yet…

I’m not sure if WLED is the right basis for my project, but I did want to use it because of all the cool effects when the lights are not being used for their “true purpose”. I’ll draw a sketch of what I’m trying to achieve, but that could take a bit.

5

Not as long as I thought…

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