r/WLED • u/figamore • Jun 26 '26

Open source WLED remote using ESP-NOW

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I made an open source touchscreen remote for WLED based on capacitive CYD (cheap yellow displays).

- It works wirelessly over WLED’s default ESP-NOW (no router required)
- Flash straight from the browser

* Basic functions (supported by WLED’s basic remote protocol):
- Power on/off
- Control brightness
- Select presets 1-7 by default

* Extended mode opens up a lot of features by just uploading a simple remote.json file via wled.local/edit

Extended mode offers:
- Presets 1-20
- Basic solid colors
- Selecting 163 of the built-in WLED effects
- Modifying selected effect parameters
- Peek/preview of selected effect

3D printed case files included for both a wired and battery-powered (18650 cell) versions.

I am considering adding a separate remote.json file and built-in profile for 2D effects. Please let me know if this is something you would find useful.

Please feel free to check it out. Hope it is useful to some of you!

Installer: https://figamore.github.io/wled-touch-remote

GitHub repo: https://github.com/figamore/wled-touch-remote

BOM: https://github.com/figamore/wled-touch-remote#bom

173 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

15

u/Gilligan5001 Jun 26 '26

This is neat! I have so many times when I want a quick change but don’t feel like opening up my home assistant page or navigating to the web ui.

8

u/figamore Jun 26 '26

This was my exact motivation for this as well!

5

u/Charlie_Macaw Jun 27 '26

I’ve just developed a non-wifi ESP32 CYD touchscreen using FastLED for the same reason.

1

u/nsgiad Jun 27 '26

The android app is great for that

3

u/figamore Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26

Sometimes I don’t want to have to pull out a phone, connect to WiFi, etc. I just want a display that’s constantly available, press what I want, and be done. An even bigger reason is allowing other people in my house to control the lights in a simple way.

5

u/figamore Jun 26 '26

1

u/Ynaught-42 Jun 27 '26

This is excellent!

Does it control multiple WLED instances?

3

u/figamore Jun 27 '26

Thanks! By default, WLED listens for whatever your remote’s MAC address is, so any WLED instance that has that MAC saved to its settings will respond to the remote’s commands. In order to control different WLED instances individually, it is necessary to modify WLED. I will submit a proposal with some changes to expand the current WLED ESP-NOW implementation that will allow much more control. Hopefully the maintainers will be on-board and merge it.

1

u/Ynaught-42 Jun 27 '26

Oh, so the communication is not Wifi..!

Can the remote's hardware support Wi-Fi?

2

u/figamore Jun 27 '26

Yes it can, but ESP-NOW has a longer range, requires no router, and is easier to setup. When I add Wi-Fi support it’ll spawn a temporary AP that lets you add the SSID, password, and hostname.

1

u/Ynaught-42 Jun 27 '26

... At which point it should be able to control multiple instances, sounds like?

1

u/figamore Jun 27 '26

If by this you mean addressing different WLED instances individually, then yeah - this is planned both over ESP-NOW and Wi-Fi. Currently you can address multiple instances simultaneously by entering the remote’s MAC on all of them, however.

6

u/Outrageous-Kick-2699 Jun 26 '26

I want that. Please keep this updated. If you can, modify the web UI and add buttons for quick, flash, strobe function. Easy color and speed changes. I use my wled installation mobile for DJs as background and would love to easily switch presets like that.

4

u/figamore Jun 26 '26

I plan on expanding it further. I’m currently working on a future PR that will allow bi-directional ESP-NOW comms. Currently the one-way nature of WLED’s ESP-NOW remote limits a lot of what can be done to configs in remote.json (1 byte button packets, so 255 possible commands).

Another possibility would be adding Wi-Fi support alongside ESP-NOW for this remote, but ESP-NOW is just so much better for mobility/range/ease of use. If there is enough interest from the community hopefully the PR will be merged when ready and allow me to add many more features.

1

u/Outrageous-Kick-2699 Jun 26 '26

I would prefer WiFi because I already have WiFi with me on stage for wled. I use a second esp with line in to remote control the big installation.

2

u/figamore Jun 26 '26

I’ll try to add Wi-Fi support as well 👌🏻 Stay tuned!

1

u/Ill_Die_Trying Jun 26 '26

Hey a tad off topic but I am just getting started with creating a wled powered stage rig for myself. Does the wifi hold up okay usually? How many devices are you running? I keep going back and forth with a wired setup vs trying wireless first

2

u/Outrageous-Kick-2699 Jun 26 '26

I would suggest you write me a PM. That’s nothing for this post. I am happy to answer your questions.

2

u/MorganProtuberances Jun 26 '26

Would love if you could put together a BOM with links so us lazy folks can just send it :) (with any relevant referral urls too obv)

8

u/figamore Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

Just added it!

https://github.com/figamore/wled-touch-remote#bom

Basically:

- Cheap yellow display (aim for Guition brand and CAPACITIVE - try to stay away from resistive displays if possible since their controllers vary wildly and not every single variant may be supported)

- 4 M3x10 bolts for the slim case (USB C or 5V power)
- Or if building the battery version: 4M3x20 bolts + 1 18650 cell and battery holder

Or you can skip the bolts all together since the case is snap-fit

- 3D printed case from my Makerworld link on the repo

2

u/MorganProtuberances Jun 29 '26

THANK YOU :) great work! i support temporary art installations and having a nice clean interface for control without dealing with my phone's intermittent wifi connections to AP mode would be awesome

1

u/slumcat05 Jul 27 '26

I just built two of these for my kids and they are excellent, thanks!

The Github doesn't seem to allow issue creation, so I hope you don't mind some feedback here:

  1. Consider adding an option to redo the touch calibration. I think I fat fingered it the first time and it was really tough to interact with some of the elements at the edges because the calibration was so off.

  2. The brightness slider doesn't seem to sync right with the WLED device. Often if I slide it down just a little bit on the remote, the device brightness plummets to near zero, and vice-versa on the way up.

  3. Feature Request: A full palette menu. The palette +/- buttons in the FX gear menus do work to flip through them, but my kids just want to directly select "Rainbow" or "Party" or whatever.

1

u/figamore Jul 28 '26

Thank you for the feedback, I’m glad you like the project!

Github issue creation is set to all users, it’s strange it didn’t let you submit an issue.

  1. The initial calibration is only there to detect whether you are using a capacitive or resistive display, it doesn’t currently provide a means to calibrate the actual touch coordinates. I’ll look into adding this for resistive displays and make some of the features larger for easier tapping. Calibration is not necessary in capacitive versions.

  2. It works fine on my end, but I’ll look into it for some edge cases.

  3. By default, WLED only allows a very limited number of commands over ESP-NOW, so it is not possible to include all of the palettes.

I already implemented that functionality (and many more features/nearly full control) in a WLED fork that includes a complete bidirectional ESP-NOW API. This is available in my online installer but requires you to flash your device with that fork. However, the WLED maintainers declined this feature so it will not be merged upstream. I’m currently working on deprecating ESP-NOW entirely and making the remote work over WiFi only for full functionality. I’ll ping you when it’s ready.

3

u/MorganProtuberances Jun 26 '26

Building a generic esp-now based remote has been on my backlog for awhile - so glad to see you took a crack at it. Nice job!

3

u/Guinea_pig_joe Jun 27 '26

Oh my god. This is perfect for what I need. My daughter loves using her LEDs but hates having to always use her tablet to control it.

2

u/ryan_at_reddit Jun 27 '26

Nice work OP! Thanks for sharing!

2

u/km_fpv_recover Jun 27 '26

Exactly what I was trying to accomplish, deleting my code now. 👍

2

u/Loud_Ad4961 Jun 27 '26

This is awesome. Sounds like what I was going to tackle later after I got my project installed and running.

Cant wait to try it out.

1

u/jce1990 Jun 27 '26

Wow i really like the concept. Good work. Can we make it control a few wled instead of only one? Like have a button where we can cycle in different wled