1200 Addressable LEDs Make For The Perfect First Dance

The first dance of a newly married couple at the wedding reception is both a sentimental and memorable event, so why not make it even more so with something a bit special? Hackaday alumnus [Brett H…

Quick Tip Improves Seven-Segment LED Visibility

We’re suckers for a nice seven-segment LED display around these parts, and judging by how often they seem to pop up in the projects that come our way, it seems the community is rather fond of…

LED Heart Keeps Tabs On Your RuneScape Character

The MMORPG RuneScape holds a special place in the hearts of those who played it in the early 2000s. Sure it might seem exceptionally quaint by modern standards, but at the time it was groundbreakin…

Smart Contact Lenses Put You Up Close To The Screen

Google Glass didn’t take off as expected, but — be honest — do you really want to walk around with that hardware on your head? The BBC recently covered Mojo, a company developing …

TWANG32 Brings LED Strip Gaming To The ESP32

Under the Hackaday TV is a modern game console, it’s a well-known model that many of you also probably have, and its main feature is a 3D accelerator which allows it to create the beautifully…

2022 Hackaday Prize: ArmaLamp Provides Light, No Matter What

Instant access to electric light is a luxury that most of us take for granted, but in times of crisis, the power is often the first thing to go. So whether you’re worried about a natural disa…

Kaleidoscope – Feelings Turned Into LED Tree

In 2020, [Eddie] found himself with a few hundred RGB LEDs left after a pandemic-interrupted project, and a slew of emotions he wanted to express – so he turned to the language of hardware, a…

Plant Growth Accelerated Tremendously With LEDs

[GreatScott!] was bummed to see his greenhouse be empty and lifeless in winter. So, he set out to take the greenhouse home with him. Well, at least, a small part of it. First, he decided to produce…

Plinko-Like Build Takes Advantage Of Wireless LEDs

Imagine if you had some magic glowing beads, that would emit beautiful colors without any wires tangling them up. They exist, in the form of wireless induction-powered LEDs, and [Debra] of Geek Mom…

Building An Edge Lit Sign From The Scrap Pile

Whether in a shop window or mounted to the top of consoles in NASA’s Mission Control Center, edge lit acrylic is a popular choice for making high visibility signs. Partly because of their str…

2022 Sci-Fi Contest: A Very Star Wars Door

Every fan of the original Star Wars trilogy knows the plight of Han Solo, who was so cruelly frozen in carbonite by Imperial forces. [erv.plecter] came into possession of a replica Solo, this time …

2022 Sci-Fi Contest: Glowing LED Cubes Make Captivating Artifacts

LED cubes were once an exercise in IO mastery, requiring multiplexing finesse in order to drive arrays of many LEDs. Going RGB only increased the challenge. This build from [DIY GUY Chris] shows ho…

Cute Oscilloscope Uses LEDs For Display

Oscilloscopes were once commonly called CROs, for the fact that they relied on cathode ray tubes for display. Since then, technology has moved quickly, and oscilloscopes these days almost entirely …

LED Kaleidoscope Uses Induction Power Magic

The kaleidoscope was first invented back in the early 1800s, with the curio known for showing compelling psychedelic patterns as light passes through colored glass and is reflected by mirrors in a …

Finally, A Mapping Tool For Addressable LED Strings

Addressable LED strings have made it easier than ever to build fun glowable projects with all kinds of exciting animations. However, if you’re not going with a simple grid layout, it can be a…

Breathe Easy With This LED Air Sensor Necklace

When you’re building wearables and glowables, sometimes a flashy rainbow animation is all you need. [Geeky Faye] likes to go a little further, however, and built this impressive necklace that…

LED Flower Bouquet Is A Radiant Hacker Desk Decoration

[Jeremy Cook] writes to us about a project of his – a bouquet of LED cube flowers. The flowers are PCB cubes made out of small castellated PCBs, each of those having an individually addressab…

Cheap Ghostbusters Toy Turned Convincing Prop

As you might expect, the release of last year’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife has not only lead to renewed interest in the old 1980s toys and tie-in merchandise, but has spawned a whole new generat…

Big LED Matrix Becomes Tiny LED Matrix Thanks To Fiber Optics

Everyone loves LED matrices, and even if you can’t find what you like commercially, it’s pretty easy to make just what you want. Need it big? No problem; just order a big PCB and some W…

Teaching You Everything You Might Have Missed About Addressable LEDs

Often, financial motivation results in people writing great educational material for hackers. Such is absolutely the case with this extensive documentation blog post on addressable LEDs by [DeRun].…