Light Buddy Documentation
I have a BlinkyTile kit that I am planning on making into a clock, using an Intel Edison and Node.js
For testing, I just connected one tile to the Light Buddy and the Light Buddy connected to the Edison USB Host port.
After some learning about the details of Node serialport, I can get the tile to blink in the colors that I want. So far, I am happy.
Before I start soldering the other tiles in, I was wondering if there is some documentation on the Light Buddy. I sort of hacked my way through by digging through the sample code.
In looking at the samples and some of the source code, there are hints that the Light Buddy can do more than just take tripletts of bytes and send them off the the Tiles.
Plus there are two buttons on the board that I haven't been able to find anything out about.
Can somebody point me to some additional information? Thanks
Comments
Aha! It sounds like you are off to a good start, and apologies for the scarce documentation.
The most basic way to use LightBuddy is the same way as the BlinkyTape- it speaks the same serial protocol (triplets of bytes for RGB, and then 0xFF to show the colors). There are some extra commands that let you store and manage patterns on the connected flash chip, however they're a bit touchy to use (and for tethered control over USB, they aren't necessary). If you want to hack it, the Lightbuddy firmware can be updated over USB using the DFU protocol. There is also an alternate firmware for LightBuddy that supports the FadeCandy protocol, but it's probably simpler to stick with the default BlinkyTape one for a small installation. As for the two buttons, they are used in standalone mode (when the LightBuddy is playing patterns from the built-in flash). The first button switches between different patterns, and the other scales the brightness.