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Want your house bulbs to be part of your show?  Here’s how!

This guide works for these Kauf Bulbs (Kauf WLED capable Bulb) – It may work for other styles but I have not researched.

You will want to configure each bulb 1 at a time so you know which is which.  It is also important to note that using the Kauf/ESPHome firmware that it is not possible to set a static IP, the best option to to create a DHCP reservation on your show router.

  1. Install 1 bulb in a light fixture and wait a minute or two for the kauf wifi access point to appear
  2. Connect to the bulb’s wifi and provide it with your show’s wifi network info
  3. Save and let the bulb reboot and connect to your wifi
  4. At this point you will need to see what IP was assigned to the bulb on your router, and set a static IP reservation
  5. Once complete with the above step you can go to the bulb’s web interface by putting in the IP address
  6. Upgrade the firmware by using the Check for Updates link to get the firmware (As of Dec 3, 2024 the latest is v1.95) – Important note do NOT try to flash these with WLED, you want to use the Kauf firmware
  7. Once bulb is updated and has rebooted now we can configure the bulb.  You can adjust the warm/cold settings as you like but the key settings that are critical are the Kauf Bulb Effect setting and the Kauf Bulb No HASS setting.
    • Kauf Bulb Effect: set this to WLED / DDP
    • Kauf Bulb No HASS: Turn ON (this stops the bulb from looking for a Home Assistant install on your network, if you don’t turn on the bulb will reboot every 15 minutes.  If you have HA, feel free to leave on)

That’s it for the Bulb config, next up is Xlights

 

In xLights there are a few settings to configure

Setup a New Ethernet controller

  • Name & Description what you want, leave vendor blank and set ID as you want
  • Turn off Auto-Size
  • Turn off Monitor
  • Set your IP address
  • Set Protocol to DDP
  • Attach to model from your layout
  • Uncheck Keep Channel Numbers
  • Set Channels to 3

Save that and repeat for all your bulbs

Final step – go to your layout tab and ensure you have a controller configured and the bulb is set for port 1