What is Reactivo from hardware point of view?
Reactivo is our new product aimed to be used by gamers to improve their gaming experience. But it can be very well used for various home installations like light up your kitchen, living room desk, stairs or bedroom bed. You can even use it to light up your long boring corridor.
What is the Reactivo hardware?
We could say, it’s basically one-output LED Ethernet Controller 3. Its complete Ethernet to digital LED (SPI) controller working over standard WiFi networks (802.11 b/g/n). You can control up to 1024 individual RGB LED pixels (or 768 RGBW LED pixels) and it doesn’t matter if it’s LED pixel, LED bar or digital LED strip.
What technical knowledge do you need to use Reactivo?
Reactivo is not more complicated than any mobile phone. The hardware installation is pretty straightforward – just install the LED strips wherever you want it and power it up using supplied adapter.
To configure the hardware, you’ll have to setup the device to connect to your home Wi-Fi. It’s using the same way of configuration as your home air condition (with ability to connect to Internet). You just need to connect to Reactivo using your mobile and choose your home wireless network.
What communication protocols can you use?
You can use it using Mqtt software, which is probably the easiest way. In this case you’ll use LED Strip Studio software to send the digital LED information to one or several Reactivo devices.
But you can also use it using Art-Net protocol. In this case, Reactivo becomes Art-Net to SPI converter working up to 7 Art-Net universes. You can use it with Grand MA, ChamSys, Madrix or any other Art-Net controller or software. And you can control RGB or RGBW LED diodes like WS2811, WS2812, TM1803, TM1809 or APA. You can control them in pixel-to-pixel mode – three Art-Net channels are converted to one RGB color information.
Later we plan to support also sACN protocol.
In case you need to know, what is Art-Net or sACN, just watch this nice YouTube video.
Stand-alone mode
You can use Reactivo to play stored animations from included SD-card, up to 64GB size. This way you can save hours of different animations and trigger them using your mobile. This is a perfect stand-alone solution for home or even professional use.
In case you need to control digital pixel LED dance suits, this controller is great way to do so. You’ll prepare your dance show using your computer, save it to SD-card and then you can play the dance show using your mobile.
But Reactivo is perfect controller for any mobile accessory to your artistic performance. In case you need to light up some mobile object using LEDs, you can control it using this device.
What digital LEDs you can use?
You can use it to control following IC (LED control chip): TM1809, WS2811, WS2812, APA102, APA102 16bit, D705, LPD6803, LPD8806, MBI6120, SM16716, SM16726.
But we continually add new LED control chips as they come to market.
Of course, if you want to avoid any connection problem, just use the device with our digital LED strips.
What’s next for hardware?
We’re happy the device is using latest multi-core processor for IOT (Internet Of Things) devices. This allows us to improve the internal software (also called firmware) and provide additional control options in the future. Our goal is to be able to use Reactivo using intelligent home light standards like Mqtt or Homey.
Just let the device always download the latest firmware and you’ll always have the new features to try. If you like the hardware, you can purchase the device using our web page.
