Rextin® WS2811 Pixels Digital Addressable LED String Lights Waterproof RGB Full Color 12mm DC 12V 5V (Controller)

I decided to get creative for Halloween and create a Tunnel to Hell. I'd never used an Arduino before nor done any electronics, but I was able to get this up and running as I wanted in a few days. I bought the 5V 500 pack which are actually 10 sets of 50 LEDs which you can daisy-chain together. There were three things for me to understand before I got them working: controlling them, powering them and ensuring I had enough RAM. CONTROLLING THEM The LEDs only require two connections to the Arduino board, which involved identifying the red, white and blue wires on the main LED cable, then connecting the white signal wire to one of the comms connectors and then connecting the blue ground wire to the GND connector. Controlling them is easy if you use a library called FastLED, which has a great help community on Reddit. The library can be added in the Arduino software via Manage Libraries and comes with some easy to understand examples. POWERING THEM The Arduino itself can't power enough of the LEDs so you'll need to connect a power supply. I bought a 5V 2amp power supply which I connected to the loose red and blue wires on the LEDs by screwing on a DC power connector. For my project, I hardly use any of the LEDs at the same time so 2amps seems to be enough, but if you use all the 500 LEDs at once at full brightness in white it can use 30amps! For this, I understand that you need to 'inject' 10amps of power along the strands at three points using three power supplies connected via a DC power connector, although the 12V version requires less injection points. I'd recommend buying a single power supply and then seeing if it's enough to power your project. RAM I started using the Arduno Uno r3 which worked for up to 450 LEDs. To get all 500 working within RAM I needed to upgrade to an Arduino Mega, which cost a little more money but worked the same as an Ardunio. I actually used an Elegoo Mega, which is a compatible copy. Overall the LEDs seem good quality and work as described. They're a bit smelly from the manufacturing process but perhaps that will dissipate over time.

These are great, they do what they are supposed to, but weren't perfect for me. I bought them to put on the Christmas tree instead of normal lights, so will do the job, however their refresh rate is very slow. I've used many WS2811 and WS2812 matrixes and LED strips and they all update so quick you can't see their refresh rates, but these LED's have very slow drivers in each light, so they're very slow. I've not found a way around that. I initially started using with an Arduino, but moved on to ESP32 and the refresh is the same. Tried a few libraries, but my ideal is FastLED as it just works and easy to programme with.

These lights are really good. I won't comment on colour accuracy etc as that isn't my thing. I just like a chaos of colour at Christmas and these are easy to control using WLED and QuinLED Dig units. I find these days that I cut off the connectors and just wire them using wago connectors but the lights otherwise last well over several years out in the rain, snow, ice. I bought this same set two years ago and this year 2022 I bought more to add to them. Be careful though as different batches have noticeable colour differences. That's as far as I go with colour matching talk.

I needed something to dominate the neighbours in their outdoor Xmas light game so bought these to dominate them. Connected all strings with waterproof plugs and sockets, powered with a 12v supply, a wemos D1 to control and a cheap level shifter to run that using WLED. I used all 10 strings. No power injection needed as long as they are not all white. I had zero failures out of the 500 and they survived wind, rain and snow and low temps for two months, no problem. The leds are very bright and colourful, from pastels to bright primary colours and reacted quickly. Highly recommended. Utterly mullered the neighbours and will be doubling up this Christmas.

We have only had them a few weeks and have only used half so far so cannot speak to the longevity but they look and perform great! Nice colours, reasonably thick wiring and a decent level of waterproofing. These are individually addressable, compared to groups of 3 in the LED Strips we have which is nice.

These are bigger than you think. I wanted them to build into a Christmas wreath, but they're just too big for that. Other than that, they worked perfectly. Could power them from the Arduino Uno board at 5v or for more brightness, directly from a 12v supply.

They smell really strongly of something similar to sesame oil. It's really strange, pungent, unpleasant smell. So much so, that I don't really want to handle them.

As easy to use as the 5v sort, with the right controller - an ESP32 running WLED on a 12V adapter board in my case.