Adafruit Sparkle Motion - All-In-One WLED and xLights Board

The Adafruit Sparkle Motion is the flagship in our series of "Sparkle Motion" boards, which are our attempt to make the best small WLED-friendly smart LED driving board in the whole world. Our resident mermaid, firepixie makes a lot of projects with WLED and she loves it! So how can we make something that will be powerful enough to drive advanced LED projects with built-in sensors? This version has a built-in antenna so it's ready to go out-of-the-box. This board has everything you could possibly want for big, small, or even massive WLED/xLights projects:

* Power option 1 via USB Type C PD with a slide switch that selects between 5, 12 and 20V (24V pixels can usually run fine at 20V)

* Power option 2 via 2.1mm DC jack, centre positive

* Low forward-voltage diodes so its good for up to 5A from either

* 5 Amp fuse to protect from over-current drive

* ESP32 mini module with built in antenna port - the classic ESP32 has the best WLED support even if we'd prefer the 'S2 or 'S3. Comes with 4 MB of flash, dual core 240MHz Tensilica, WiFi, Bluetooth LE and Bluetooth Classic support.

* USB-serial converter with auto-reset

* Three output signal terminal block sets with power and ground for each - they'll be level shifted to 5V. Use 26-20AWG stranded or solid core wires, 5A rated.

* 6 GPIO breakout pads with a fourth level-shifted output, and 3 more GPIO plus power and ground.

* Built-in I2S microphone for audio-reactive projects with digital-quality audio

* Built-in IR receiver for easy remote control integration

* Stemma QT I2C port to connect external sensors/OLED/etc.

* Separate analogue/digital input JST port for analogue input, potentiometer, microphone or external IR receiver

* User button on GPIO 0 plus Reset button

* Red built-in LED on pin 4

* Small built-in NeoPixel on pin 2

* Compact enough you can use it for wearable projects - 1.3"x1.75" / 33mm x 45mm size with mounting holes

To make it super fast to get started, terminal blocks are pre-installed: use any 20-26 AWG stranded or solid core wires with a flat-head screwdriver to attach semi-permanently. While we recommend it for use with WLED, it will also work just fine as a compact ESP32 board for use with Arduino, ESP-IDF, MicroPython, CircuitPython or any other ESP32-supported codebase. If you're looking for the same board but with a wFL external antenna, click here

Resources

* Primary Guide