Datasheet

The Magic of NeoPixels

Incorporating scads of LEDs into an electronic project used to be a hairy prospect, a veritable rat’s nest of wires and

code. The arrival of dedicated LED driver chips brought welcome relief, offloading grunt work from the microcontroller

and allowing one to focus on the application. Much simpler, but still not “Christmas light” simple.

The WS2812 Integrated Light Source — or

NeoPixel

in Adafruit parlance — is the latest advance in the quest for a

simple, scalable and affordable full-color LED. Red, green and blue LEDs are integrated alongside a driver chip into a

tiny surface-mount package controlled through a single wire. They can be used individually, chained into longer strings

or assembled into still more interesting form-factors.

Important Things to Know About NeoPixels in General

Not all addressable LEDs are NeoPixels. “NeoPixel” is Adafruit’s brand for individually-addressable RGB color

pixels and strips based on the WS2812, WS2811 and SK6812 LED/drivers, using a single-wire control protocol.

Other LED products we carry — DotStars, WS2801 pixels, LPD8806 and “analog” strips — use different

methodologies (and have their own tutorials).

When seeking technical support in the forums, a solution can be

found more quickly if the correct LED type is mentioned, i.e. avoid calling DotStars “NeoPixels”…similar, but

different!

NeoPixels don’t just light up on their own; they require a microcontroller (such as Arduino) and some

programming. We provide some sample code to get you started. To create your own effects and animation, you’ll

need some programming practice. If this is a new experience, work through some of the beginning Arduino

tutorials to get a feel for the language.

NeoPixels aren’t the answer for every project. The control signal has very strict timing requirements, and some

development boards (such as Netduino or Raspberry Pi) can’t reliably achieve this. This is why we continue to

offer other LED types; some are more adaptable to certain situations.

We know you’re eager to get started…but If this is your first time using NeoPixels, please at least read the

“Best Practices” page before connecting anything!