Amazing Christmas Tree Lights and Sound Show

While outdoor lighting displays seem to get all the attention, this hack by “Osprey22” indoor to an indoor tree for an amazing effect. The trick here is that instead of relying on programmable lights arranged on the tree, the setup adds a projector to enhance the the show, allowing it to even project video onto three packages arranged below.

Lights are driven by a Raspberry Pi, using Falcon Pi Player to store video, songs, and lighting sequences, as well as a SanDevices e682 pixel controller to directly interface with the 400 WS2811 LEDs scattered about the tree. A program called Xlights is used to control the effects, which is well-known in the DIY Christmas lighting community, however this presented some configuration difficulties as the tree arrangement meant some LEDs overlapped in the program’s grid. This difficulty was handled using a C routine, allowing lights to be perfectly coordinated without conflict.

To complete the lighting effect, a projector was mounted at an angle so that it could cover the entire tree, along with three especially painted presents that allow projection of a video to go along with the tree’s lighting sequence. While not as big as decorating one’s yard, the effect is breathtaking, and coordinated so well that it’s difficult to immediately tell from looking what technology is behind it.