How to install WLED on ESP8266 and connect to WS2812B strip lights 

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this video and your older video too me from complete stress to finished.. i cannot thank you enough for making this so easy! Really!!

Very helpful and detailed. No fuss. Love it 🙂

Thanks for the intro to WLED. I’ve been using FASTLED and the Arduino IDE till now so it’s cool to learn a new approach

Love this, always looking for cool led lighting options. Not sure if you already have a video on this but would love to see, the board used in a project as to where you hide the board and how you wire the light strips to it in said project.

Thank you so much for your tutorials!!!!!! You are the best on youtube!!!!

My light would not light at all until flashed. This was amazing and helpful and I appreciate your work and dedication to us. My only question is do you put this in a case or anything? I have to figure out how to mount this to my couch and table. Thanks again!

All of your vids have been super informational. Thanks!

Thanks for this !!!!! 1st time wiring up a hexa-leaf and was a little lost. this got me up and going super quick!👍👍👍

Great video! This is not only cheaper than buying a wi-fi controller but also has way better effects, but I am wondering - how many leds can you connect before you damage the esp

Hey Chris....thank you for this video. Although I've watched most of your videos, I FINALLY got around to programming my first MCU today and loaded WLED onto an ESP8266 following your instructions here. Worked perfectly. I have just 2 questions if you happen to get this and are able to respond quickly. Are the same three pins that are used on the 8266 MCU the same pins you use for an ESP32?? If not, which pins do I use on an ESP32? And second, is there an advantage to run an ESP32 over an ESP8266 MCU for WLED? If so, what are those advantages? Thank you!!!

Straight to the point and very informative! Just subscribed

Great info. I am new to LED controllers and need some to the point and simple instructions!

Very well done video. I have a ton of these LED strips from a megatree that I no longer use. This will recycle those strips. Using your Amazon code, I also bought 6 of the ESP boards, Thanks.

Perfect @Chris Maher, this one helped me out and I had WLED in a fast and simple way! Now looking for a way to connect my Govee H6110 to WLED....

Absolutely amazing content and simplified for me as a newby. Thank you. Does WLED let us program which lights are which color (static color, not a moving affect)? I want to make a logo/sign. e.g. first 50 LEDs will be Red, the next 20 LEDs Blue, followed by another 10 LEDs Green maybe. How do we setup that segmenting in WLED?

Hey Chris! Awesome content bro. I was wondering if you had a way to add some sort of protective case/box for the ESP8266? Im looking to install some lighting on a wagon. Im hoping to make it as weather sealed as possible. Any tips?

Hello Christ... You are the best... Everything are working fine while I do followed all your directions.,.. Many thanks...

I know this is an older video but I need help. When adding power does there not need to be any resistors or capacitors anywhere? Most videos don't mention it but I see some diagrams using them. Thanks for the help, love all your led projects!

Love it man! This is super helpful! Appreciate it

Chris, I've been enjoying your vids a lot as I'm new to custom led installation. I'm looking to install a single 5M white led strip on my deck to start. I'd like to control the power, brightness and timer from my phone. Would you recommend the ESP8266 for the single color strip or is this overkill? Thank you and God bless!

Very helpful video. Can you control this with Alexa or any of the other smart home brands?

thanks for a really clear and excellent tutorial.

Very well explained, and the noob like me understood very well, thank you very much for providing the software, May god bless you

Great video! Mine would not show up on the flasher until I installed the driver you provided. Thank you!

Very Good Tutorial , Thank you for taking the time to make it.

Thanks for the detailed instruction. By the way can we supply 2m(total 120LED) ws2812B leds from esp8266 vin pin? with 5v 2A phone charger? Thank You...

So what board do you reccomend? This one of the ESP32? What's the difference and why do you use one over the other?

Awesome tutorial! If you want to add different segments of LED strips like not one continuous run, what pin would you connect to on the node?

Very nice video. I watched now a couple of your videos and I probably start my own project with WLED. But can I also use the ESP8266-01S for this projects?

Hey there mate, just found your channel and love the content, giving me the itch to try and setup some rgb strips with your methods. coming from germany, i don't have the same options on esp32 boards and same other components. My question would be: can i just pick whatever i find but says ESP32 controller, or should i look for something special in them?

Hi Chris thanks for the upload! i've been following your channel for a while now.. i finally pulled the trigger on a wled project im having a issue and was wondering you could help me out.. my lights act crazy lol. i assume they are "flickering" the weird thing is that when i touch and hold the ground wire (barehanded) they function correctly. i dont know what to do. any help is greatly appreciated. edit: i have a 12v power supply going to 12v btf2811 lights (11feet) and a phone brick powering an esp32d board.. bridged ground between board and strip

Hey Chris, I want to put up some led strips with the way you showed in the video but my plan is to have led strips in different places in the room. How do I connect couple ESP8266 boards together to have the same effect and timing at the same time? I suppose its possible as the ESP8266 boards connects to wifi. Also the strip will be about 2m, 2m and 4m in length, do you think a phone charger like the apple ones will work? Thanks

Heyy, great video!! It helped me a lot. But I was wondering why the ESP8266 was able to power the 5V LED Strip (because I read that the ESP works on 3.3V). My second question: I want to power 252 LEDs for my project. Is it possible to use a 5V 5A power source with micro USB into the ESP (exact setup like the video)? Or do I have to use an external power source?

Is there a way to pull the code for a specific animation and use it as lambda in ESPHome?

Can we use this outdoor , with connecting our own mobile wifi ??? Or we have to use house wifi ???

Hello Chris! Amazing video first of all. Help me setup wled on my NodeMCU. I have a question though. Should I run it using my TVs USB port?(LG C2 OLED) I have plugged it in, it works fine and helps me turn it on and off with the TV remote (as it is connected to the USB port). I am just concerned about the long term effects on my TV. I have limited the brightness limiter to 500mA

Nice explanation. Thanks!

Thanks so much for this!

Excellent video. Helped this NOOB tremendously. Next question...Whicpins do I use for an external power supply rather than the micro usb. Sorry if you covered this already.

Thank you so much. Your video are very COMPREHENSIVE. Now I can set up My HyperHDR + ESP8266+ WLED + SK6812 everything on wireless

when you unplugged the board and then plug again to the power source, do you need WLED app to replay the patterns you have before you unplug the board? Does the board store the patterns you have configure?

amazing video man! worked perf!

Amazing tutorial! Keep it up.

Love this video! Very informative and straight to the point! unfortunately, I can't connect to the ".local" WLED interface after getting a glowing yellow light. Any ideas? Thanks!

Great jobb. Really helpful and properly explained. 👍🏻

Hey Chris, been watching your vids for the last few days (great content & good soundtracks too 😜) Couple of questions; I currently have 20 metres of ws2811 around my living room controlled by 4 preconfigured controllers, with 12v supply every 5 metres to avoid volt drop. I want to swap them out for esp32, if i use 1 will the data reach 20 metres? also if I use 4 can they fully sync so at the animations start and end at 20 metres? Any advice is much appreciated. Leon

How do we connect multiple esp 3288 to work with sync? Having a dilly of a day trying to figure it out. I figured it out afterwards.

Very instructive video, can I use more than one output for multiple LEDs strips on a single esp32 for different light effects?, ty.

After watching just about every video you posted I decided to I build a 5v LED cloud design with some cotton and a metal frame for my daughters ceiling. My question is how long can the power cable be from the power source to the ESP 8266 before it becomes a problem? I want to try and hide the cable in the corner of the wall with a piece of trim. I am brand new to this DIY thing but im hooked immediately. Any thoughts or comments would be much appreciated.

hi, i really appreciate you making this video. it was very helpful. I just have one question. If i plug the ESP8266 to my pc can i run ambibox with it for ambilight?

Hey Chris, Iove all your videos. Watched many of them multiple times. I'm just starting and learning how all this is done. Just order from Amazon pretty much everything you listed. Can you help me with downloading a Mac version of the software? I noticed you used a PC, which I don't use. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks😁

Great video. I’m building a home theater and want to backlight each acoustic panel. There’s at least (16) 4x8 panels. I would like to have them all controlled with Alexa at the same time. Do you have any suggestions to make this work?

Thanks also in my specific case I am working on ws2812b 2 meter 60 led/meter. So approx 5v*6amp total 30 w. I have Xiaomi mobile charger which is 5v but amp is low for 5v. What to do?

Very helpful vdo and i love it. thanks. Not sure why my led lights strip of 29 only light up two led 😪😪☹☹

Thanks for the beautiful briefing

Oh man you are a lifesaver, thank you 🙏.

hi chris, i was following your video and i was wondering for a 5m ws2812b led strip for 300 leds which power supply should i use? Thank you

Hi, this has been a real education for me in the past few hours, so thank you! Is there a COB, RGBWIC LED strip available? I'd like to use something with a dedicated white and the COB just looks much better than anything else. Thank you!

Gmm interesting Is it possible to control different led strips with 1 board ? Like i want 1 strip pink And the other green and another blue ?

Question and i hope you answer, thanks . ON the video you said to connect the DATA CABLE of the LED to PIN D4 on the ESP8266 , but in the WLED -LED SETTING you have PIn 2 on the LED OUTPUTS ???? If PIN 2 is set up in the LED OUTPUT of WLED , should you connect the LED DATA CABLE TO PIN D2 on the ESP8266 ? explain why you connected to D4 instead of D2 ?? , did you make a mistake ?

What’s the best way of getting the leds brighter would it be a different strip or swapping the bread board wires and if it is what would I swap to?

Super helpful! Could you also do a video (or if you have a link to someone else) on wiring it up starting from a cut LED strip? I would love to use some leftovers (so it doesn't have those starting wires)

Can I connect 3 tapes of 4 meters each to an ESp 32 or will I need more than one?

Thanks for the awesome content, Chris. Keep it up. I powered my LED's with an external 5V 20A power supply, but after watching this and the "Power LED Lights + Injection. Complete Walkthrough" video, I also wanted to use a phone charger(5V 2,4A)/USB to power my LED's. But when I connect VIN (NodeMCU) to the red cable (SK6812) + GND to the white cable, the LED's doesn't light up. The data cable is also connected to the right GPIO, since it worked with an external power supply before. Do you have an Idea what I'm doing wrong? Would be cool to get rid of the huge external power supply and just use USB Edit: nevermind. I realized that I have a newer version of the NodeMCU. The V3 from Lolin. There you have to usw the VU pin, which outputs 5V coming from the USB

With esp23 can you use 12v power supply to power the strip lights

Hi Chris, I had watched all your wled videos and started a project after watch your install walk thru. Thanks for putting them together. I was successful in building a one strip using Bt lighting from amazon 16.4 ft. ws211 . I bought another strip and daisy chain it, colored coded keyed connectors so should be an issue . But the second strip will not light up despite increasing the leds counts in led preference section. If i tell wled to skip 10 leds, the second strip will light up 10 leds. In daisy chain I only halve gpio4 driving both strips. esp32 is powered by usb adapter and strips powered 12v 4.5A adapter. Does anyone has any idea what I did wrong? Appreciate a reply. thanks . Aaron

I purchased the Dorhea 10PCS ESP8266 WiFi Development Internet Board NodeMCU LUA 4M Flash Serial Wireless Module CH340 Serial WiFi WLAN Communication Compatible with Board IDE/Micropython. I have tried using ESPixel program to flash them, use the flashing program you have under this video. It wants to use COM 3 but it does not find it. I have another esp8266 board from wemos and it works perfectly fine on bothj programs. Am I missing something or using the wrong programs? Thank You

Hi Chris. I’ve tried this today but I can’t get the leds to switch on. Wled is responsive but I can’t get anything from the leds themselves. Any ideas?

Thank you for showing and explain this to me.. i have a strip needs 12 volts, how can inject 12volts if i wanna use this ESP2866 SHIPS OR ESP32. please explaint it how and thank you for your efforts

I have ws2815 strip, what do I do with the extra data wire, what do I connect it to?

Does this configuration have enough power for 100 led or i need to provide external power ?and how to provide external power ?

Hi Great video got mine working in minutes, but do you have this problem. When I turn off power to esp8266 (light on a timer switch) it goes back to the amber lights it does not keep lights settings, I’m using WLED app with 0.12.0 version. Thanks for the help.

Very helpful, thanks

Very cool. Thanks!

Hi, do we need a computer for one time setup only..? Can I use the strip for back of my TV once setup is made…? Thank you..

Hey Chris, your videos are super helpful so thank you. I set up an ESP8266 WLED strip and it is connected to my 2.4ghz network. I typically have my phone connected to the 5ghz network. The one thing I can't seem to find info on is - do I need to switch my phone to the 2.4ghz network ever time I want to control WLED from the app? This seems cumbersome and I was wondering how I would control my smart home items from my 5ghz network - or is that impossible. I could get a hub or an alexa or google device and control things that way, but I would love to control through my phione. Any thoughts would help, thx!

Can't thank you enough for this video man!!

Great video, 1 question, i am planing to make a led costume and i want the led to be sync to the music for example a 5mins music is there a way i can program the led to colors or pattern i want and sync to the music, can you please help with this 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 thank you in advance, and 1 more thing can i use a 12v battery to power it up?

Hey Chris, great video. I wander if you could point me in the direction on how to get these lights controlled with HomeKit?

Hi Chris appreciate if you could share on how to copy segment, preset, playlist from Wemos D1 to other wemos device. Thanks

Hi, great video, but I have weird situation - im using the same esp8266 +ws2812b, if I plug the power to Vin it is not working (no lights), when I plug it to 3v than it is ok ?

Hey, are all these wires 18 gage? I’m wondering if can detach my existing led strip from my existing 18-5 wires in the wall and then solder this new LED strip to said existing wire, and and then let those wires carry back to my controller cabinet. Thanks!

Hello. I'm trying to set up a 61 rgb LEDs 5V strip like the one you used in this video. I connected the esp board exactly like you did but I'm powering it with the additional wires with a 5V USB adapter. The whole thing is acting strangely. The esp board sometimes comes on then the onboard blue LED fades out and the wifi is unreachable. If I power it via the microUSB it works perfectly. nb: I kept the power limiter at deafult (850mA) No idea what's wrong.

Hello! I have a white only led strip. Can I also connect it to this and be able to use it on my phone to start it? I just want remote access to turn on and off

love your wifi name!! XD

Very helpful could you possibly make a video showing how to setup sync interfaces

Thanks Chris!

Thank you so much I have Mac I couldn't set up ESP home 12 or 14 even the weld doesn't open for me what should I do ?

ive got the same development board as yourself loaded with WLED please can you tell me what pins i connect 2 ,, the LED strip has 4 wires blue green red and black Many thanks

I'm wondering if this remembers these settings after powering off. I would like to have these powered by my PC so they turn off and on with my PC but if I have to set the lights every time I turn then on then that would be quite annoying.

Hi Chris, I would like to spice up the wallbox for my electric car with this kind of lightshow indicating the charging status for example. Do you know if I could control it with node red instead of the app? Best regards from germany. Chris

Hey Chris, I got the 5v 8 amp 40 watt driver in - hooked that up (Even just used the breadboard connectors) and set it to 4000mA, no issues. I set it to 2500mA now and am going to let it run for a bit to see what happens. I no longer feel heat with on the ESP8266 board so I think the actual issue is the USB port used for powering is just a bad idea, it generates way to much heat as I described before and read on another message board. So..I think maybe now the issues are all resolved..and my lights are of course way brighter now too (2500mA from 850 or even 1000 makes a huge difference!)

Great tutorial. I am stuck with the pins. I can’t figure out which is the power and DATA pin. Also, it will not turn the WLEDs. I cut a small strip with ten lights to test it first. No success. My board looks like the one in this tutorial. I used your link to buy it, but the pin markings differ from those on your board. D4 does not exist in mine. The board is ESP-32S. What am I missing?

Can you explain how to make a vu meter lights (sound reactive led strip) with esp8266 and sound sensor please… I so confused is that possible or not

Great info and video. New sub.

Windows 11 is just coming out lately, but, you are using Windows 64! Amazing!

I may have missed it in the other comments - the link to the LED Lights says the page cannot be found. Have they been discontinued or are there other ones you'd suggest? Great video!

Fantastic tutorial! Thanks Chris. And it's refreshing to see you work faith in there. Keep it up.

if i want to do the led light project do i have to buy/use the controller to change coors and staff?