Awesome
Alternative firmware for AI-Thinker RGBW bulbs
THIS REPOSITORY IS NOT MAINTAINED ANYMORE, SEE ESPHome AS AN ALTERNATIVE.
This is an alternative firmware for AI-Thinker RGBW LED bulbs, which uses MQTT instead of the default Chinese mobile application. The bulb is a cheap (~12-18$) product available on sites like Aliexpress (here) and eBay (here or here), which can be easily reprogrammed as it is based on the popular ESP8266 Wi-Fi chip.
Features
- Remote control over the MQTT protocol via JSON
- Supports brightness, RGB and white colors, color temperature and effects
- TLS support (uncomment
#define TLS
inconfig.h
and change the fingerprint if not using CloudMQTT) - Debug printing over Telnet or Serial (uncomment
#define DEBUG_TELNET
or#define DEBUG_SERIAL
inconfig.h
) - ArduinoOTA support for over-the-air firmware updates (enabled,
#define OTA
inconfig.h
) - Native support for Home Assistant, including MQTT discovery (enabled,
#define MQTT_HOME_ASSISTANT_SUPPORT
inconfig.h
) - Store the current state of the bulb in memory to prevent from losing its state in case of power cut (enabled,
#define SAVE_STATE
inconfig.h
) - Gamma correction (enabled,
#define GAMMA_CORRECTION
inconfig.h
)
Demonstration
Last Will and Testament
The firmware will publish a MQTT Last Will and Testament at <chipID>/rgbw/status
.
When the device successfully connects it will publish alive
to that topic and when it disconnects, dead
will automatically be published.
Discovery
This firmware supports Home Assistant's MQTT discovery functionality, added in 0.40.
This allows for instant setup and use of your device without requiring any manual configuration in Home Assistant.
To get this working, discovery: true
must be defined in your mqtt
configuration in Home Assistant
configuration.yaml
mqtt:
broker: 'm21.cloudmqtt.com'
username: '[REDACTED]'
password: '[REDACTED]'
port: '[REDACTED]'
discovery: true
MQTT JSON Light
This firmware supports on/off, brightness, RGB colors, color temperature, white values and effects. The messages sent to/from the light look similar to the example below, omitting fields when they aren’t needed.
{
"brightness": 255,
"color_temp": 155,
"color": {
"r": 255,
"g": 255,
"b": 255,
},
"effect": "Rainbow",
"state": "ON",
"white_value": 150
}
Name | Data Type | Values | Description |
---|---|---|---|
brightness | Integer | 0-255 | The brightness to set to |
color | Object | - | A dictionary with the below RGB values |
color.r | Integer | 0-255 | The red color to set to |
color.g | Integer | 0-255 | The green color to set to |
color.b | Integer | 0-255 | The blue color to set to |
state | String | ON/OFF | The state of the light to set to |
white_value | Integer | 0-255 | The white color to set to |
effect | String | Rainbow/Blink | The effect to set to |
color_temp | Integer | 154-500 | The color temperature to set to |
How to
- Install the Arduino IDE and the ESP8266 core for Arduino
- Rename
config.example.h
toconfig.h
- Define your WiFi SSID and password (
#define WIFI_SSID "<SSID>"
and#define WIFI_PASSWORD "<password>"
inconfig.h
) - Define your MQTT settings (
#define MQTT_USERNAME "<username>"
,#define MQTT_PASSWORD "<password>"
,#define MQTT_SERVER "<server>"
and#define MQTT_SERVER_PORT <port>
) - Install the external libraries (PubSubClient, ArduinoJson and my9291)
- Define
MQTT_MAX_PACKET_SIZE
to512
instead of128
inArduino/libraries/pubsubclient/src/PubSubClient.h
- Solder wires from (bulb)
3V3
to3V3
(FTDI),GND
toGND
,RX
toTX
,TX
toRX
andÌO0
toGND
- Flash the firmware (board
Generic ESP8266 module
, Upload Speed115200
and Flash Size1M (128K SPIFFS)
)
FOR SECURITY REASONS, IT'S HIGHLY RECOMMENDED TO HAVE A STRONG WI-FI PASSWORD, TO ENABLE TLS, TO DEACTIVATE THE DEBUGGING OUTPUT AND TO SET A PASSWORD FOR OTA.
Licence
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
This firmware was graciously supported by DariBer, who had offered me a development bulb. If you like the content of this repo, please add a star! Thank you!