# Poor man's LED wake-up light



## PhotonWrangler (Mar 6, 2016)

I've been toying with the idea of getting a wake-up light, the kind that graduall ramps up the brightness to simulate dawn. However the $100 entry price for these lights seemed a little steep just to see if it would work for me, so I fouud a bluetooth-controlled LED light at the DIY store for $15. No smart hub needed - it pairs directly with the phone and the app controls on/off/brightness levels.

It seems to work, but with two caveats - 

* The maximum ramp-up time is only 10 minutes, which is kind of quick. It's better than an instant-on lamp though.

* I accidentally left the app running all day on my phone and it really chewed through my battery life. Normally my phone is still almost fully charged at the end of the day, but with this app running it was down to around 35% left.

I'm currently looking for a third party app that might be more battery-friendly as well as offering more flexibility with the brightness ramp-up time. I'm also toying with rolling my own controller with an arduino BLE radio.

Has anyone else been tinkering with wake-up lights?


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## Lighteng (Apr 18, 2016)

It would be even better to use an ESP8266 (like a mini Arduino with WiFi) and have the lamp keep track of time all on its own, so you only have to use an app when you want to change the settings. When I get around to making my own wake-up light, I'll be doing something like this.

Here is a project that should have everything you need to figure out how to modify your lamp: http://www.instructables.com/id/Wake-up-Ceiling-Light/


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## PhotonWrangler (Apr 18, 2016)

Thanks for the article, Lighteng! I have one of those ESP8266 modules laying around, and I might be able to raid a mosfet from an old CFL driver board. I also have some other arduino fiddly bits laying around.


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## N2PYS (May 1, 2016)

I have a full spectrum alarm clock that will do sunrise sundown ( ramping up or down in as long as an hour )as well as wake up dual settings ,with day date and time on the display ( fully adjustable contrast, with or without back light and adjustable sound ) it's a great unit that I believe I got on sale for $69.00 and bought a full spectrum desk lamp and floor lamp that are all 10,000 lumen ( I have a Circadian Rythym disorder ) great products that I bake under every morning ( if you call it "morning" when you have not slept in 4 or 5 days ) I also take 30 MG of Temazepam and 4 MG of Lorazepam to try and get me to sleep everynight. I highly recommend full spectrums stuff should you decide to buy one rather than innovating your own. No battery consuming app needed.


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## PhotonWrangler (May 1, 2016)

Thank you for the input, N2PYS. We have a full spectrum lamp that gets a lot of use during the shorter months.

I think I'm still going to tinker with rolling my own. I loaded an app on my phone that lets me look at the bluetooth info from that smart bulb I bought, so there's a chance that I might be able to figure out how to control it from an arduino or raspberry pi. I also bought the high current MOSFET in case I decide to build one completely from scratch. If nothing else it could be a good learning experience for me.


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