u/iamarcel

Couldn't find a warm, cozy light that works with HA. So I learned PCB design, 3D printing and ESPHome

Thought you guys might like this little adventure:

I always wanted to be "an inventor" when I was growing up.

Turns out you can just...make stuff???

There's no light on the market that's full-spectrum, warm and Home Assistant-controllable.

So I said, fuck it, I'll do it myself.

Figured out that you can use Claude Opus as electrical engineer (needs like 5 back-and-forth double-checks with ChatGPT Pro mode though) and ESPHome programmer.

Got the PCB assembled and somehow when I plugged it in the first time, it just showed up on Home Assistant. Incredible!

Just make what you want the world to have, guys. We can do it :)

youtu.be

u/iamarcel — 1 day ago

▲ 27 r/diyelectronics

Couldn't find the light I wanted, so I learned to DIY electronics

Man, what an adventure! It's insane what we can do in the world today.

For the life of me I couldn't find a nice cozy evening light:

Warm 1800K-ish light
Full spectrum—no blue light
No flickering
Smart home controlled

...turns out you can just make this stuff yourself?

In the last few months, I got a 3D printer, learned PCB design, had JLCPCB assemble a custom board with an ESP32 (had an engineer there save my ass by flipping the TVS diode), flashed it with ESPHome and...boom. The thing I wanted.

My childhood's dream was to be an inventor. Looks like we're doing it.

Here's to the love for DIY electronics!

u/iamarcel — 1 day ago