ws2811_mqtt

Overview

ws2811_mqtt is a Python package designed to control WS2811 LED strips using MQTT, making it easier to integrate lighting controls with the Home Assistant platform. Currently specific to the GPIO pins of the Raspberry Pi but I intend to abstract that part of the code to make it work on any platform.

Current requirements

• A raspberry PI, since the package directly refer to the GPIO pins for data transmission, and ensure you have the necessary permissions to access them (Root access) How to set up the lights with the Raspberry Pi
• Homeassistant instance
• An MQTT broker to facilitate communication between the Home Assistant and the WS2811 LED strips

Local Installation (Options 1)

Use Poetry to install the package:

poetry install

PyPI Installation (Option 2) - Recommended

The ws2811_mqtt package is also published on PyPI, allowing you to easily install it using pip. This enables seamless integration into projects without using Poetry.

pip install ws2811_mqtt

Usage

Here's a quick example on how to use ws2811_mqtt in your project:

env file

Multiple ways of doing this:

1. You can pass the env vars directly to the executable

• example: MQTT_BROKER=192.168.0.100 MQTT_PORT=1883 ... ws2811-mqtt

2. create an env file where the script is run, and it will automatically be loaded
3. Pass the path to your env file as an Environment variable: WS2811_ENV_PATH and it will read from there. (Recommended)

NUM_LEDS = 50
MQTT_BROKER = "192.168.0.123"
MQTT_PORT = 1883
MQTT_USER = "your_user"
MQTT_PASS = "your_password"
MQTT_UID = "ws2811-1"

Explanation of Environment Variables:

• NUM_LEDS: This variable sets the number of LEDs in your strip. It's essential to configure this correctly to ensure that the program knows how many LEDs it needs to control.
• MQTT_BROKER: This is the IP address of your MQTT broker. The broker is responsible for managing the communication between the different parts of your system.
• MQTT_PORT: The port on which the MQTT broker is running. The default MQTT port is 1883, but this might need to be changed if your setup uses a different configuration.
• MQTT_USER: The username required to authenticate with the MQTT broker.
• MQTT_PASS: The password for the given MQTT user. It's used alongside the username
• MQTT_UID: A unique identifier for this particular WS2811 LED controller instance. This is used so the broker and corresponding systems know where messages should be routed.

Script arguments

usage: ws2811-mqtt [-h] [-v]

Control the LED strip with MQTT and API

options:
  -h, --help       show this help message and exit
  -v, --verbosity  increase output verbosity, each v adds a verbosity level, (ex: -vvv)

Running the script

if installed locally:

poetry run ws2811_mqtt

if installed as package

ws2811_mqtt

Troubleshooting

Make sure to have configured all env vars properly.

If you encounter issues, check the MQTT broker connection and ensure the LED strip is properly connected.

You can debug using the -v option to increase verbosity and get more detailed logs.

If the problem persists, you can also check homeassistant logs.

You can open an issue, I will be happy to look into it.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please submit a pull request or file an issue for any enhancements.

License

ws2811_mqtt is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.

Support

For issues or questions, please open an issue in this repository.