ESP8266 HomeKit White LED Strip

A plain white LED strip that you switch on and off from Apple Home. An ESP8266 drives a relay that switches the supply of the strip, and Life Cycle Manager 2 installs the firmware and its updates.

The strip is a standard white strip. It only switches on and off and is not dimmable from HomeKit.

How it works

The diagram above is a simplified block diagram, made for this article. It is not a wiring diagram. The repository has no schematic or photos. If you want to build the same thing, take the ESP8266 HomeKit Switch as your starting point: it is the same idea of a relay switched from HomeKit, with a circuit and a diagram. Make sure the relay is rated for the supply of your strip.

Flash and install

The installation is the same as for the other ESP8266 HomeKit accessories on this site. The firmware runs on ESP-Open-RTOS with Life Cycle Manager 2, which sets up the WiFi and installs updates over the air. The full steps, from installing esptool to flashing, joining the LCM- WiFi network and pairing, are in ESP8266 HomeKit Blinds.

In the portal, use these values:

When the installation is done, scan the QR code the device generates in the Home app to add the strip.

Good to know

• The repository has one release, 1.0.0 of 4 May 2021, with a main.bin of about 424 KB and a signature file, main.bin.sig.
• The HomeKit Accessory Protocol specification the firmware follows is the non-commercial version, for accessories you build yourself and do not distribute or sell.
• The repository is under the MIT licence. It holds the release and no source code.

The project is in the ESP8266-HomeKit-White-LED-Strip repository on GitHub.