Author: Angela Sheehan / Source: Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers
I’m one of those people who is always late to a party because I can’t decide what to wear.
I’m also someone who creates elaborate last-minute projects for those parties. This project — I call them my Insta-Hue Heels — was designed and created in less than a week for me to wear to the SparkFun Electronics holiday party.LEDs on the heels are wirelessly controlled by a matching bracelet connected to Adafruit’s free Bluefruit LE Connect app, allowing for quick color changes for any occasion. The magical effect of instantly controlling color through a smartphone is a great way to interact with other partygoers — let them try changing your look!
It’s easy to replicate with a little time, patience, and the perfect pair of pumps.
1. CODE AND FUNCTION OVERVIEW
Setting up the Bluetooth connection was easy using Adafruit’s tutorials. I started with the framework from their Controller example for the Bluefruit LE board. The bracelet uses the Color Picker tool built into Adafruit’s Bluefruit LE app to control the LEDs. Since the app (for Android or iOS) will only pair to one Bluetooth device at a time, I used inexpensive, short-range RFM69 transceivers to broadcast the color info wirelessly from the bracelet to both heels. This allows control of multiple costume pieces at a time without writing a ton of custom software.
I used SparkFun’s well-documented RFM69 hookup guide for code examples to integrate the additional radio broadcasting function into the project.Upon startup, the Flora Bluefruit module in the bracelet waits to connect to the Bluefruit app. After pairing, opening the app’s Controller menu and the Color Picker function brings up a color wheel for choosing a color on the phone’s screen. Hitting the Send button sends the color values (RGB) over Bluetooth to the bracelet.
The bracelet stores the received values in variables, then retransmits the received color to the heels via the RFM69 radio transceiver. It also displays the color on the bracelet’s NeoPixel ring using Adafruit’s NeoPixel library.
The heels receive the broadcast values and update the color displayed on the flexible LED panels with the ColorWipe() function from the NeoPixel library. Depending on manufacturer of your panels, you may need to adjust the settings in code to set the origin pixel of the matrix.
More detail on the code and my latest prototype is available for download at github.com/GellaCraft/InstaHueHeels.
2. CHOOSING SHOES
Careful selection of the shoes made it easy to integrate and hide the electronics. I found 3″ block heels that nicely accommodate the flexible LED matrix panels. This height also allows placement of a 1,200mAh LiPo battery on the inside edge with enough clearance to avoid potential damage from walking.
3. ATTACHING LED PANELS
First, I carefully wrapped each LED panel around the back of the heel to test fit. To reduce bulk, I replaced the pre-soldered connector with silicone stranded wire. To disguise my wiring against the heel, I used black wires, marked with color-coded heat-shrink at the ends to keep track of them.
I used E6000 adhesive to attach the panels to the back of each heel with the wires running to the top corner of the panel near the inside of the arch. To hold the panels in place, I used small clamps and let the adhesive cure for 24 hours .
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