NikoLight Version 1.1.1
This is the first release after to renaming to NikoLight. A lot of new features have been introduced.
User Profiles
NikoLight now supports profiles which can save your LED and system settings in a comfortable way. Profiles can be created, named, cloned, modified and deleted. Currently the limit is 50 profiles including the default profile. Switching between different setups is now being done within seconds. This feature also allows to use different settings for different drivers easily.
Audio Unit Support
NikoLight can now be connected to an additional audio board. With this hardware extension the audio signal from the car speakers can be captured and analyzed. As alternative it can be connected to basically any audio source via a 3.5mm headphone plug. The board then captures a stereo audio signal with a sample rate of 42.2kHz. The audio data is then processed on the extension board in real time and the analysis data is transferred to the NikoLight MCU. Based on the audio data new advanced effects can be rendered. To receive one of the new Audio Units please join our discord server and enter the waiting list.
New Sparkle, Pulse and EQ Effect
Now there are 3 advanced and audio based effects available. These will react in real time depending on the played music. Example videos can be found on our discord server.
Dark and Light Mode
The UI now comes with two different themes/styles. The preferred appearance can be configured in the settings.
Multi Language Support
The UI now supports English and German as a language. The preferred language can be set in the settings.
Manual Fan Control
The fan can now be controlled manually. This allows to set a fixed fan speed and enforce either better cooling or quieter operation.
New I2S-Based LED Driver
Since the previously used library for driving WS28XX LED cause many problems and instabilities, we decided to write our own I2S based LED driver. This new driver offers a very low memory consumption and extremely high performance at the same time. Theoretically NikoLight could now drive 16 channels in parallel. Allowing a frame rate of at least 60FPS while controlling 4000 LEDs individually. However, since only 8 channels are available the limit currently is 2000 LEDs with at least 60FPS. This is an increase by 400 LED and at the same time 30 additional FPS.
New Footwell Lights
NikoLight now comes with replacement PCB for the footwell lights of the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y. They contain 10 WS2812B LEDs in the 3535 form factor. This allows to connect the footwell lights to the NikoLight board and create colorful effects.
Many More
There are a lot more smaller improvements that will not be listed in detail here. Overall, the user experience should be a lot smoother now. Also, the hardware handling improved a lot. Most hardware components are now automatically detected or can be removed without adjusting the configuration.