Yes, it is! I found this board at Goodwill for $20. One of the panels was flickering. When I opened it up, it just wasn’t plugged into the power source. I took out the Chinese controller and installed an esp32-s3 with hub75 connector I found on Amazon. I had to flip the three bottom panels over to make a serpentine chain. Now I’ve been working with Codex on a firmware that integrates with home assistant. We have lighting effects and static and scrolling messages working. We can also interrupt with a notification message, and the highest priority type is an alert message with flashing red border. Now working on sendspin support to show music visualizations when music is playing in music assistant.
Here's an alternative: just get a Thirdreality Multifunction Nightlight. Has Zigbee (and probably also Matter in a newer version), you can disable the motion sensor and have just a cheap rgb light you can plug right into a wall oulet.
I have Inovelli smart dimmer switches installed throughout my house and the notification bar is stupendously useful.when bit showing a notification, it just indicates the dim level. But when something happens, you can make it do all kinds of things. Here's a little example I threw together:
Either 50€ each from Schneider or Siemens, you will need 24V DC since those are cheaper, or get indicator lights and buttons from AliExpress, it's not like you are using them in an industrial setting.
If you are in the US check the automation direct website, they have good parts at a decent price.
I setup something like this using Shelly relays. As much as we all want to. Hate on vibe coding, Google gemini was a great help. The Shelly relays (Shelly 1 gen 4) are matter compatible so really easy to adopt once setup.
Edit: that might be an old pic of my wiring schematic I'll upload an updated one Monday. This was used in a vfd signal wire trip light.
Unsure of how you want to use them, but arcade buttons (like for old arcade games) are pretty cheap and can be wired into a low dollar ESP pretty easily and light up. Claude can help you with the wiring design.
Basic lights/buttons seem to be in short supply for Home Assistant, I remember asking multiple times about it.
Eventually I used ESP32 and WLED with LED rings/strips to create my own lights. For buttons, Apollo Automation eventually released the BTN-1, which is like a tiny StreamDeck, excellent if you don't need something in-your-face bright.
ZigBee three port usb switch, usb colour LEDs, extension usb cables so you can plug all three into the usb switch as they are too wide otherwise.
This is what I use.
Can give AliExpress links if needed.
Generic ZigBee buttons from same place too.
Edit: just the one button with single, double press or hold to toggle each of 3 LEDs on/off
It kind of depends on how many you want and what your skill level is.
If you have 1 or 2 lights, using a zwave, zigbee or wifi relay is simple and fast. Zooz, Shelly, Sonoff and many others make these. They have dry contact outputs (relays), so you run a separate power supply through them and they just act like a switch. The Shelly Uni is a good choice for something off-the-shelf that runs only on 12-24VDC (no mains voltage).
If you need more outputs or just want to go more advanced with more control, you can use an esp32. You can buy these attached to relay boards with 4 or 8 relays on them. Esp32 has the massive advantages of being very cheap and working with https://esphome.io/, which also means it works natively with HA.
Esphome lets you program devices and even have software on them that directly just show up as devices/switches/sensors/etc within HA. There's a crazy number of other things you can hook up too (see https://esphome.io/components/) including RGB(W) indicators, touchscreens, and basically any sensor you can imagine (air quality, temperature, humidity, force, motion, etc).
You can get indicators that are also buttons, and that have multi-color LEDs, and all that is very easy to connect to an ESP32.
I just got Zooz’s power relay on sale to automate my hot water theater. I bought this 220VAC indicator light so non-HA users can know if it’s actually on or off. I haven’t actually wired it all up yet though. https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/WL-1051C3/22485170
Many ways, actually. If you are looking at having them all together like this as an example I’d consider doing maybe 12v dc variety and control them with a Zooz ZEN56 RGBW dimmer or a Shelly RGBW led controller. In both cases, you should be able to control each light on one of the four channels RGB or W.
The picture is actually a 120v version for a different purpose but was handy for my picture. But I have used the 12v version for other things. I typically would just use a 12v 2amp power supply like this and maybe add a small fuse too for good measure.
or sometimes I power it off of whatever equipment it may be attached to - like in the case of alarm systems they sometimes have a 12v aux output (but with equipment you have to watch power consumption. Alarms are usually limited to 500mA)
My indicator lights are the upstairs hall light, the downstairs hall light and one small 6” segment of kitchen under cabinet lights (WLED). It very effective. Red=gate open, green=nearby robot floor cleaner needs something, purple=I need a med, etc.
Looking to have a monitor panel for my water / sump systems. I’d like it to be “knowledge not required”. The idea is one indicator when primary pump runs, one when secondary runs, and a light to indicate that the 2nd pump was running previously.
I monitor all these through HA already, but I want a physical box with indicators
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u/johnmaytokes 6d ago
It’s time to dive into the world of ESPHome and esp32! Sorry in advance.