
DiY Fiber Optic Light Using ESP8266 - adysan
http://adityatannu.com/blog/post/2016/01/13/Philips-Hue-Fiber-Optic-Light.html
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unwind
Nice!

Totally amazed by the Siri integration, had no idea you could do things like
that. Not an Apple user, so I don't follow that corner of the DIY world.

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phyber
fun project

sorry this is off topic of the OP but on topic for fiber:

a few months ago i saw a video on youtube of a person projecting video, or
perhaps still images, through a fiber cable

since then i've been unable to find the video and i've been unable to figure
out the right combination of words to be able to search for it online

has anyone seen this video?

know where to find it?

have any information on projection through fiber?

was it a hoax? did i dream it up?

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adysan
Thanks. Did a quick search, are you referring to this?
[http://video.mit.edu/watch/fiber-optic-
bundle-11499/](http://video.mit.edu/watch/fiber-optic-bundle-11499/)

Looks like they removed it, try contacting them.

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phyber
the video i am referring to was just one guy sitting at a desk holding a
single fiber cable in his hand and projecting some image onto the wall and
desk and whatever he pointed it at..

i've seen that mit video in the search results but the description: "The image
of printed words is transmitted through a bundle of approximately 25,000
coherent optical fibers and projected onto a screen"; states more than one
fiber

the actual video itself aside i just wonder if there is any information on
image projection through a single fiber

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adysan
Nah, image through a single fiber sounds like a hoax, it's against the physics
of how optic fibers work. But if it's a bundle on fibers, I can see how that
would work, but again, projecting it onto a surface seems unlikely. The moment
the light leaves the fiber, it starts dispersing.

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HorizonXP
Awesome! Going to have to do this myself.

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NotPhillipsHue
Not Phillips hue related at all; it's like you have no idea how Philips hue
works. It's a diy wifi bulb plain and simple.

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dang
You're right that the submitted title ("Philips Hue Fiber Optic Light Using
ESP8266") was misleading, since the blog post makes clear it's a clone. But
your comment would be a lot more valuable if it dropped the personal swipe
("it's like you have no idea") and taught us specifically _why_. As it stands,
it's just an acerbic dismissal, and that makes for a poor HN comment,
especially when the target is someone's work.

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adysan
got similar feedback on reddit too
[https://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/40w7et/philips_hue...](https://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/40w7et/philips_hue_fiber_optic_light_using_esp8266/cyxu43z)

I can see how people can get worked up over this. Here's what I replied over
there:

Thanks for pointing that out. I agree that from a technical standpoint this is
not the same as a Philips Hue bulb or light strip. If you look at it from a
users point of view, all Philips Hue is a lamp that you control the Brightness
and Hue of. This gives you that functionality. No Zigbee protocol. True, but
in the context of HomeKit/HAP-NodeJS, does it matter how the bridge talks to
the light? I might as well be using 433MHz transceivers, nRFs, or directly
controlling the Raspberry Pi's GPIOs. For that matter, ZigBee would be doable
too, but I don't know enough about the protocol to see it's benefits. No smart
mesh network where each device extends your coverage. True, but a mesh network
can be implemented with ESP8266. But if my whole house has WiFi, I don't see
the point. No possible compatibility with either Phillips' Hue bridge, Hue
remotes, or any other kind of Hue hardware (like Phillips' Hue+Ambilight
TV's). Actually, using the Philips Hue shim in Homebridge, I believe it should
be possible to make it compatible to Hue bridge. My motivation behind making
this was to prove that with ESP8266 based projects, you don't need to have a
clunky web UI or a custom app. This lamp can be controlled with any app that
support HomeKit. Philips Hue was just the most similar commercial product I
could think of. Btw, HAP-nodeJS can be completely eliminated here by using
nRF51/52 BTLE chips. They can emulate the HomeKit API and control the
NeoPixels both in one chip, so no bridge necessary!

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kefka
Oh, and I think what you did is small (in terms of deployment), but
tremendously important.

Current IoT implementations all rely on a corporate link to their servers,
which I heartily disagree with. You can see a lot more of my acerbic
complaints on my blog crankylinuxuser.net as well as reddit /u/crankylinuxuser
:)

People like us add to a growing force that says "We will not accept non-
standards." I don't care of BigCo makes IoT gear: Just use MQTT/CoAP/AMQP or
make doing so trivial. Don't make me use your garbage API on your servers.

