With these long nights, waking up can sometimes be challenging. Therefore, I wanted to make a wake-up light. Buying one is also one of the possibilities, but making one yourself is much more fun. You can also add some unique features.
The idea is to not just have one light, but to use an LED strip with digitally addressable LEDs, also known as WS2812B or Neopixel. Usually these chips have three inbuilt LEDs (red, green and blue), and a controller. Some time ago, I found them with warm white, cold white and amber LEDs, perfect for simulating a sunrise! In a time span of say half an hour, the lowest LEDs will start with a deep red glow, after which more LEDs will light up in an upward direction, and the colour will become more white-ish.
Currently the electronics are in the prototyping stage. That is, experimenting with patterns, colours, brightness, ways of setting time, etc. The casing however is already done for a large part :). It consists of an aluminium profile with opaque cover, fitted in a wooden base. After (quite) some woodworking at home with my dad, combined with a beatiful piece of teak wood, this is the result so far:
After sanding, and rubbing the teak wood with some cotton cloth, it looks really amazing.
Next steps are painting, integrating electronics, programming, etc. So, lots of work to do, stay tuned!