SS4H-LumiHex ESP32 Smart Panels – Open-Source RGB Hexagon System for Next-Level Ambient Lighting

Video version

If you prefer watching over reading, I’ve got you covered. Check out the video where I walk through the whole process.

Source files

The project is totally open-source, which means you can grab it and tweak it however you please. You can snag my design, the PCB layout, the 3D model, the bill of materials, and firmware – and make it exactly as is. Or, you can use it as a jumping-off point, make changes, and whip up something totally fresh.

Download

Where can I buy it?

JLCPCB

Introduction

You’ve probably seen those colorful geometric LED panels on YouTube already. Even if you didn’t realize it.
A ton of creators use them as mood lighting in the background. They look awesome… until you check the price.

That was exactly my story with Nanoleaf-style panels. I really wanted something like that on my wall, but paying that much money for “just RGB light” didn’t quite sit right with me.

So instead of buying them, I built my own version — fully modular, smart, wall-mountable hexagon panels with proper XY LED matrices inside. I call this project LumiHex.

Backstory

Before I started, I searched YouTube and Google for “DIY Nanoleaf” and, of course, found a ton of projects. Some of them really good, some… less so. But none of them matched everything I personally wanted from a system like this.

What I had in my head was something that:

• wasn’t just pretty RGB in the background,
• integrated tightly with my smart home,
• could display information (not only colors),
• and was flexible enough to rearrange, expand or repurpose later.

At some point I realized: yeah, that exact combination just doesn’t exist yet.
And when something doesn’t exist, there’s only one logical option left: you build it yourself.

General Concept

LumiHex is not “just” wall RGB. Each hexagon is:

• a smart light,
• a notification display,
• a set of 6 physical buttons,
• and a modular building block you can arrange however you want.

All of that is tightly integrated with Home Assistant. And once you have that kind of integration, the panels stop being only mood lighting and become a visual interface to your home.

Schematic

The brain of each panel is an ESP32. That means:

• every module is its own smart device,
• they all connect to Wi-Fi individually,
• and can be flashed / updated independently.

For the lighting, I’m using WS2812 addressable RGB LEDs (also known as NeoPixels).
The important part is how they’re arranged.

Instead of gluing an LED strip around the perimeter, each panel contains a proper XY matrix — a 2D grid of pixels. That gives you:

• smooth gradients and effects,
• proper 2D animations,
• and even the option to show digits, glyphs or small icons.

For example, in the weather mode I can show a little sun, a cloud or a raindrop icon on a single panel.

On top of that, the PCB includes:

• 6 tact switches – one on each flat edge,
• 6 edge connectors – to chain panels together. They carry power and communication lines between modules – so effects can stay in sync even though each ESP32 runs its own firmware instance.

As for power. It comes in through a USB-C connector on the bottom side of the enclosure.

• At least one module in your layout needs USB-C populated.
• The rest can either:
  • also have USB-C (if you want more flexibility later), or
  • just have pin headers and get power from that first “main” module.

From an electrical perspective, all panels share the same 5 V and GND rail, so you can inject power at multiple points if you have a large layout and want to avoid voltage drop.

PCB

To get that nice, even (and ideally as bright as possible) lighting, I also went with a white solder mask—and I definitely recommend you do the same.
That said, being completely honest with you—I haven’t compared how much of a difference it makes versus a different solder mask color (most likely green). The downside of white is that it’s more expensive to produce since it’s less commonly used, which means extra effort on the manufacturer’s end.

Mechanics

Assembly

4. The next step is to design the pattern you want to hang on your wall. This is also when you’ll figure out how many modules you actually need.
I’ve put together a simple web app to help you try out different layouts. You can add, remove, and rearrange the panels however you like.

Depending on where you connect them, each panel will be assigned different coordinates (those are the little numbers you’ll see on the panels)—but I’ll explain that part in more detail when we get to the configuration step.

Software

Before we dive into the software side of things, let’s clear up why each panel has its own ESP32 in the first place. I mean, one ESP32 is more than capable of handling all the panels, right? Plus, flashing each one individually for the first time definitely slows things down.

That’s all true — but despite that, I decided to go with the “one microcontroller per panel” setup for a couple of reasons.
First off, some of the panel designs just can’t be connected in a clean way using the kind of edge connectors I used. Addressable LEDs need to be connected in series, which means no branching allowed. I’d have to mess around with extra wiring to make it work, and I really wanted to avoid that.
The second reason is flexibility. I wanted to be able to reconfigure the layout however I wanted — even split it into two separate systems on different walls if needed.

ESPHome files generator

Like I mentioned earlier, I’m hooking up my LumiHex to Home Assistant using ESPHome — and I definitely recommend you do the same. It’s a super convenient middleman between your device and HA.
For it to work, though, the device needs to be properly configured. That’s why I put together a form that’ll quickly and easily generate a full set of files you’ll need to get everything up and running.

All you have to do is enter a base name for your lamp — each additional one will automatically get a suffix like "_X", where X is the panel number.
Then, just type in how many panels you’re planning to use.

Once that’s done, hit “Generate” and you’re good to go.

Turns out there’s a small bug in my generator :/
So I’ve temporarily taken it down—I’ll fix it as soon as I can and put it back up on the site.
In the meantime, you can still download the files along with the others. The only catch is that you’ll have to manually enter the device name and duplicate the config files based on how many panels you want to create.
But I’m sure that won’t be a problem for you :)

Adding configuration files to ESPHome

Editing files

As you might’ve noticed, among the generated files (aside from the ones for specific lights), there’s one with a "_base" suffix.
That’s where the core of the configuration lives. All the effects and everything else are set up there. Each individual file just imports that base file.
The cool thing is, if you ever want to add a new effect later on, you only need to do it in that one file—it’ll apply to all the others automatically.

Let’s get back to the coordinates for each panel—the numbers you saw in the app when setting up the layout.
You’ll need to add those into each file before flashing everything. That way, some effects can “spill over” beyond a single light.
This lets you create effects that run across all the lights at once, while still showing different things on each one—so the whole animation looks smooth and coordinated.

Now the only thing left is to flash everything.
The first time, you’ll need to use any USB-UART adapter. After that, you can use OTA for all future uploads.

Summary

And that’s it! Your very own “smart” RGB decor panel is all set. Time to kick back, relax, and enjoy the view.

LumiHex started as “I don’t really want to pay that much for Nanoleaf” and ended up as a pretty capable, fully open-source modular smart-light system.
If you’d like to see LumiHex in action, I highly recommend watching the accompanying YouTube video embedded in this post — it’s much easier to appreciate the animations and effects when you see them moving.

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