Source
r/arduino•
WarInternal

Planning a project and have a question about brightness / lumen output

Hey guys, I'm starting to research the requirements for building my own sunrise alarm clock for the winter season, but I'm new to all this.

I'm going to need some fairly decent light output, and it needs to be dimmable so it's not an abrupt on-off. I can diffuse it easily enough, but I guess I'm curious if I can use an LED solution or if I need to drive an AC dimmer, or something else. Any input would help.

Thanks for your time!

Posted Oct 16, 2018, 1:41 AM UTC

02
chrwei•

you can PWM leds, but if it's a matrix that's not as easy. not really enough detail here to say any more than that

1
a455•

I'm curious if I can use an LED solution or if I need to drive an AC dimmer, or something else

It's whatever you prefer. There's dimmable Sonoff outlets for regular bulbs controlled by an ESP8266 Arduino, IR remote controlled RGB LED bulbs that are controllable with a simple Arduino and IR blaster, and RGB or fully addressable LED strings. There's also a whole bunch of full feature sunrise alarm clocks available on Amazon/eBay for pretty cheap, so check those out first.

1