{"id":24,"date":"2015-09-19T22:07:14","date_gmt":"2015-09-19T20:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/itay.mobi\/blog\/?p=24"},"modified":"2016-10-09T09:51:59","modified_gmt":"2016-10-09T07:51:59","slug":"hacking-mi-light-pairing-with-esp8266","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itay.cc\/?p=24","title":{"rendered":"Hacking the Mi Light – Adding wifi with ESP8266"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Philips came out\u00a0with their Hue<\/a>\u00a0few years ago, we started to see many
\nChinese bulbs with the same capabilities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Usually those bulbs connect to some kind of Hub at 2.4Ghz (not wifi), and from there
\nthe Hub is connected to the home network\u00a0and we can control those bubs from the smartphone,
\n<\/span>or you can buy a remote control that connects to the hub\/directly to the bulb.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those new Chinese bulbs are very cheap (about $10).<\/p>\n

Another thing that came out not long ago is the the ESP8266 – \u00a0a little SOC (system on a chip) that
\nincludes WiFi and a micro controller on the same chip, and it costs about 2-3$.<\/span><\/p>\n

A while ago I bought some modules back never got the time to play with them very much.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So I’ve been thinking- why not taking\u00a0one of those cheap bulbs that has the capability to change colors,
\nand replace its brain with an ESP8266 and control it from the web\/smartphone!<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, I bought a Mi Light<\/a> light bulb from Banggood, and started exploring it.
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After a little playing and checking, \u00a0you can see in the photo above my findings.
\nThe Mi Light use a micro controller from STM to control the bulb,
\na Low Power 2.4Ghz Transceiver to communicate with the hub\/remote, a 3.3V voltage regulator,
\nand some transistors that controls the RGB and the WHITE leds (My guess: the white is MOS and the colors are BJT).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Update 10\/9\/2016:<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is a mix between the Green and Red colors in the picture.
\nAlso, I made measurements for\u00a0the currents\u00a0of\u00a0each color:<\/p>\n

Blue: 87.6 [mA]
\nRed: 99.2 [mA]
\nGreen: 71.3 [mA]
\nWhite: 158.3 [mA]<\/p>\n

 
\n(I don’t have the hub or the remote so it was a little tricky to find which transistor controls which led,
\nI assumed that the first one control the white one because it different type of transistor)<\/p>\n

After studying the Mi Light, I moved to the ESP8266.<\/p>\n

I chose the ESP-03 module because it was small and has many GPIOs from the chop that are available.<\/p>\n

The ESP-03 module header\u00a0are not standard, and I wanted to use the 1″ header so I could pull
\nit form the Mi Light if I wand to update the firmware.
\n\"IMG_2\"<\/a>
\nSo apparently someone already found some nice way solder a 1″ header to this module
\n