OK, so I probably spent way too much time making these dumb lights smart, but It just needed to happen! ESP32, ESPHome and Home Assistant to the rescue!

I made a bad purchasing decision a few years ago. At the time, these cheap pole accent lights seemed like exactly the thing I needed, but the remote made me crazy. So, instead of buying new ones, I decided to fix these ones with some electronics. I used an ESP32, some resistors, some MOSFETs, and a new power supply to make a smart controller. I even created my own custom PCB using an app called Fritzing.

I used ESPHome to program the ESP32 and then connected it to Home Assistant to handle all the automation. Now I'm happy with these lights.

Home Assistant: https://www.homeassistant.io/
ESPHome: https://esphome.io/index.html
Fritzing: https://fritzing.org/

Home assistant light template: https://github.com/gmorse81/HAbackup...
Fritzing file: https://github.com/askcloudarchitech/...

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00:00 Turning Dumb Lights Smart
00:17 The Problem with My Lights
00:43 Attempt 1 IR Blaster
01:18 Dumb Light Disassembly
01:54 The unknown LED strip
03:41 All the parts necessary to smarten these lights
04:23 Wiring the Color LEDs
05:43 Wiring the White LEDs
06:33 Disaster Strikes!
07:31 Designing and Building a Custom PCB
08:35 The Finished Product
08:54 Wrapping it up with Home Assistant Software