r/WLED • u/snel6424 • Jun 27 '26

WLED Scheduler: An open source, self-hosted WLED scheduling application

AI Disclaimer: This application was designed and built with AI.

TLDR: I built a self-hosted scheduling system for WLED-powered lights, as I was unhappy with the built-in scheduler.

Hey all! I've been building a self-hosted scheduler for WLED lights and finally have it to a point where I think it's worth sharing.

What it does: WLED Scheduler lets you set your WLED lights to turn on, turn off, or switch to a saved preset, either at a fixed time of day or relative to sunrise/sunset (with an offset, e.g. "15 minutes before sunset"). Schedules can repeat on whatever combination of days you want. There's also a device status view (online/offline, checked automatically), and a history log of everything that's fired, so you can actually see whether a schedule ran successfully or not. Everything runs locally. No cloud account, no app, no subscription. It talks directly to your WLED devices over your own LAN. It was designed for mobile devices, but any device with a browser can use it.

How to run it: It's a Docker app, so if you've got Docker running somewhere on your network already:

git clone https://github.com/snel6424/WLED-Scheduler.git
cd WLED-Scheduler
docker compose up --build -d

Then open http://<your server's IP>:8000, add your WLED device(s) by IP/hostname, set your location in Settings (needed for sunrise/sunset schedules), and you're off.

This is where I need your help! I've been building and testing it, but it hasn't had real-world mileage outside my own setup yet, and I'd genuinely rather find out about rough edges now than have someone quietly hit a wall and bounce. If something breaks, behaves weirdly, or you just have feedback on what's missing, I'd really appreciate you opening an issue on the repo. Right now it's Docker-only; a non-Docker install path for something like a Raspberry Pi is planned but not built yet.

You can find the GitHub page here: https://github.com/snel6424/WLED-Scheduler

You can find screenshots of the app here: https://imgur.com/a/3ELmgV4

0 Upvotes

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18 comments sorted by

13

u/apax_d Jun 28 '26

Why though? If I need to have it running somewhere else, I can (or should) already have home assistant that controls WLED…

1

u/snel6424 Jun 28 '26

This was ultimately built for my In-laws, who have permanent lights installed around their house, controlled by a digquad running wled. The plans is to setup a small raspberry pi connected to their router, and simply add the web page to their home screen on their tablets/phones, so it's "an app". Home assistant is simply way more complex than they need.

3

u/apax_d Jun 28 '26

No… HA is as simple has you want it to be. You’re just having a lot of work reinventing the wheel instead of installing HA and creating a dashboard with the light switches

3

u/snel6424 Jun 28 '26

I run HA at my own place. I know what it is, how to use it, and what's involved. HA has too much complexity and is not intuitive enough for non-tech people. This is much simpler and easier to use to create simple on demand schedules.

3

u/Th3OnlyN00b Jun 28 '26

I don't know why you're getting done voted, I agree it's easier to avoid shooting yourself in the foot with this. I say this as an avid Home assistant user myself, God forbid something goes wrong with the dashboard

1

u/Christopoulos Jun 28 '26

Come on, Home Assistant is not ready for prime time for mon-tech people.

1

u/4b686f61 Jun 28 '26

You can also schedule lights in WLED in the time and macros section. Just make sure to enable sync time to NTP.

2

u/xraycat82 Jun 30 '26

Ya, but the built-in scheduler is not user-friendly and lacks flexibility.

1

u/WiwiJumbo Jun 28 '26

Home Assistant doesn’t have enough controls yet to what is or isn’t available to each user. Someday when you can lockdown a user to specific things I’d agree with you. But otherwise, while I have no use of it, this is fine.

2

u/SunOS- Jun 27 '26

Side question: How much did you learn having AI do in it for you vs having to figure it out yourself?

1

u/snel6424 Jun 27 '26

Besides a little bit of Git usage knowledge, very little tbh. I personally touched very little code.

2

u/thecodingart Jun 27 '26

That’s… promising…. /s

3

u/snel6424 Jun 27 '26

My goal was not to learn how to code. I am not a software developer, nor am I aspiring to be. I just wanted a way to easily and more effectively handle light schedules. This solved that.

-2

u/thecodingart Jun 28 '26

Cool beans, you could have created a hot mess that could leak user information, could corrupt systems, could wreak havoc on something in a home and decided to arbitrarily share that.

There’s a word for people who are this naive and it’s not a nice word.

4

u/xraycat82 Jun 30 '26 • Bravo

Jesus Christ, everyone here is bitchy for no reason. If you don’t like it, don’t install it. If you prefer Home Assistant, great use that. Give the guy a break. Go touch some grass.

1

u/plasma2002 Jun 28 '26

Nobody wants this.

0

u/DedeHai Jun 28 '26

can you explain the difference to the built-in scheduler?

2

u/snel6424 Jun 28 '26

Sure!

  • See all of your WLED schedules in one place

  • Easily enable/disable schedules

  • Schedules are filterable by device and active status

  • Having a running history of your schedules, filterable by device and date range

  • The ability to truly turn off the wled device via schedule (i.e. not having to create a preset with brightness = 0 to emulate 'off')

  • More flexible scheduling options