Using mesh nodes (possibly via mqtt)

Questions
1

So i want to build a BIG lighting installation. The idea is to have about 50 esp-01 with their own small led. They would not be wired and not in a wifi network. So i looked at painless mesh and they have a way of addressing each mesh node with mqtt (ie there are topics for each node)

Now the lights on each node are small and do not need controlling (in wled sense), so i was thinking that in this setup a Wled master could control the mesh in the same way it would otherwise control a matrix.

I am a coder, and am confident that i could get the mesh set up and mqtt side working. But i do not know wled enough to say if i am barking up the wrong tree.
Has anybody tried this?
Could somebody with wled understanding say if this sounds feasible, possibly give me a starting point?
And off course if any maintainer reading this would be interested in getting mesh functionality into wled, i would be happy to code under guidance.

Thanks for the great code
Torsten

2

MQTT messages support JSON API so you can do whatever you want.
Be mindful that JSON messages may get quite big and overflow MQTT buffer (not really overflow, but will get dropped).

3

Hmm, this does not answer my question in any way, just adds more. I do code, so i already know i can do anything. Just how was the question. And json does not answer that.

The most important question is has anyone tried integrating mesh with wled?

Second: is there mqtt docs outside the code?

4

Not a MQTT guru at all, but there is an OK-Good WLED doc source at:https://kno.wled.ge

Admittedly the section on MQTT is thin, but it does reference some (re)construction efforts that may be relevant: https://github.com/Aircoookie/WLED/issues/207

Completely out of the WLED ball park, there’s the BLE-Mesh protocol stack Espressif built for the ESP-32. Given you don’t need major WLED functionality, you might be better off chasing things from the mesh side first and merge in something like the NeoPixelBus library to add LED control to a mesh solution.

5

Thanks @divsys ,
i did read the docs before asking. As you say thin.
I also read the github thread. It sounds like it would be merged, but does not really help.

As you suggest, i will write the non-root nodes of the mesh with neopixel.

The questions is about driving the mesh. Each node as a pixel. But i guess RTFSC is my friend :frowning:

6

I am a coder, and am confident that i could get the mesh set up and mqtt side working.

I understood you want info on MQTT so I gave it. You can control WLED by MQTT.

As for mesh, no, you cannot do it with stock WLED. You can try with one WLED instance acting as an AP and all other instances connected to it but I guess that would overload master instance with TCP/UDP connections. Also some reported UDP not working correctly in AP mode.