Open-source stage lighting firmware
for ESP32
Professional DMX fixtures built on affordable hardware. Native DMX512, Art-Net and sACN — pixel bars, multi-output LED controllers, motorized winches. One modular core.
Professional DMX fixtures built on affordable hardware. Native DMX512, Art-Net and sACN — pixel bars, multi-output LED controllers, motorized winches. One modular core.
RavLight isn't a finished firmware for one product — it's a core of ready-made modules you wire to your hardware. Networking, DMX, effects, the web UI and OTA are done; the fixture layer on top is yours to shape.
Raw lwIP UDP receivers — no external libraries. Multi-universe pool up to 32 universes, ArtPoll reply, ArtSync, per-universe multicast.
Wired RS-485 in and out. Use fixtures on a classic DMX chain or bridge network protocols to wired DMX with the Axon node.
One core, many personalities. Adding a fixture touches zero core files — board pin maps, DMX patch and web UI are all declared per fixture.
Full configuration from any browser: network, DMX patch, per-output LED settings, live DMX monitor, device discovery — no app required.
Record any incoming DMX source into on-board scene slots and loop playback standalone — no console needed on site.
Rainbow, chase, fire, twinkle and more, rendered on-device with fixture-aware color handling — run shows without any DMX source.
LAN8720 wired Ethernet as the primary transport, with WiFi and SoftAP fallback. Boards stay reachable even before configuration.
One file, over the network — the web UI travels inside the firmware image. First install happens right from this site, via USB, in your browser.
Devices announce themselves over mDNS with name, fixture, board and version, so home automation systems and network browsers list them without being told an address.
Once a fixture is built on the core, it comes with a full web interface — no app, no cloud. Point a browser at the device and set it up: network, DMX patch, per-fixture parameters, live monitoring.
Except Elyon — which targets off-the-shelf controllers — each fixture is RavLight adapted to a specific product: an in-house prototype, or an independent builder's board. Building hardware of your own? That's what RavLight is for →
Professional pixel bar — 40-pixel WS2811 COB strip plus six independent white accents, nine DMX personalities tiered like a commercial fixture, shutter, master dimmer, macros and dimming curves.
Multi-output LED controller — up to 10 outputs, WS281x / SK6812 / APA102 / PWM / relay, per-output universe mapping, RMT or I2S parallel backend.
Motorized winch fixture — TMC2209 with sensorless StallGuard homing, guided setup wizard, DMX position control with safety watchdogs. Running in a real installation.
Network-to-DMX bridge node — Art-Net/sACN in, wired RS-485 DMX out, OLED status display, plus two auxiliary LED outputs.
A fixture's own web page is all you need to manage one fixture. Polaris is for managing forty — a service on a PC and a browser interface on top of it, reachable from that PC or from a phone on the same network. It manages devices; it never sends DMX, so your console keeps that job.
A free Home Assistant integration puts every RavLight controller in your home automation system — found on its own, no addresses typed in. It does not send pixels: your sequencer or console keeps that job. It tells you whether the show is actually running, and how the hardware is holding up while it does.
Halloween and Christmas displays run tens of thousands of pixels across a house — eaves, roof lines, arches, a matrix on the garage. Elyon drives eight outputs from one board, 2,400 pixels on our bench unit, and speaks the sACN and Art-Net your sequencer already outputs.
A controller in a sealed box on a roof in an Australian December is a thermal problem, not a lighting one. Home Assistant watches temperature, signal and uptime on every board, so a unit that is cooking or dropping off the WiFi tells you before a section of the display goes dark.
Every controller reports whether DMX is arriving and at what frame rate. That is an automation you can act on: if the frame rate is zero five minutes after the schedule started, the sequencer never came up — and you hear about it from a notification, not from the neighbours.
Two tools, two jobs. Polaris is the workshop side — inventory, addressing, patching a whole rig, firmware. Home Assistant is what stays on once the display is up: schedule, monitoring, and one dashboard the whole household can look at.
Off-the-shelf controllers and open RavLight boards — all ESP32 based.
| Board | Fixture | Ethernet | Outputs |
|---|---|---|---|
| XDMX rev2.2 (WT32-ETH01) | Veyron | LAN8720 | WS2811 + P9813, RS-485 DMX |
| QuinLED Dig-Octa | Elyon | LAN8720A | 8 × LED |
| Gledopto Elite 4D (GL-C-618WL) | Elyon | LAN8720 | 4 × LED |
| Gledopto Elite 2D (GL-C-616WL) | Elyon | LAN8720 | 2 × LED |
| QuinLED Penta+ / Penta Deca | Elyon | optional | 5 / 10 × analog PWM |
| LED Lifter v5 | Orion | LAN8720 | TMC2209 winch + 4 × LED |
| XDMX v1.4 | Axon | LAN8720 | RS-485 DMX + 2 × LED + OLED |
| Generic ESP32 DevKit | Elyon (test) | — | bring-up / signal analyzer |
Connect your board via USB, pick your fixture, click install. No toolchain, no drivers hunt, no command line. Works in Chrome and Edge.
⚡ Open the installer