Smart Stairs Now Exist...But Should They?

The real trick to home upgrades: just take it one step at a time 😉

40 AMPS! wow! what was the max wattage required ? even if all 10 strips were illuminated at the same moment?

plan magazine woodworking

Looks pretty cool but not for me. Something about lighting for each step just doesn't look good. Especially for the amount of effort that's required.

The stairs look stylish but not practical for anyone walking down in socks as they would slip on the treads. Nightmare for older viewers too are stairs with no carpet to walk on.

Nice job👍💯

I would've used weight sensors under each stair

We had wood stair treads added to formerly carpeted stairs and found that since they didn't add anything to the tile floor in the entry, the bottom step was an inch higher than the rest. At the top the transition was to a floor that remained carpeted, and the final step up was an inch shorter. The result was hazardous.

Stairs are slippery without rug

No-code it using WLED + ESP32 with thousands of effects. + wifi and time related settings.

Forstner bit, round permanent magnets, wood glue. That will hold a light up under the stair edge, a stylish pegs at either end to remove.

Edge-lit optical fiber could provide a simpler (?) alternative solution.

Easy! If you have a shop and all the tools a pro would have. Skill might have a factor in here as well😃. I wonder if you could have wired below the stairs rather than all the work with the skirt. Warning: People should familiarize themselves with stair construction for the standards of rise and run and nosings, so they don't end up with a dangerous staircase. Obviously you are working with an existing stair construction, but that doesn't ensure it will work out. To begin with (and you may have handled this in the reflooring) you could end up with unequal step heights at the top and bottom.

control with something that has OTA updates like esp32 around 4 bucks each.

you might like this for your lights void rainbow(int wait) {
// Hue of first pixel runs 3 complete loops through the color wheel.
// Color wheel has a range of 65536 but it's OK if we roll over, so
// just count from 0 to 3*65536. Adding 256 to firstPixelHue each time
// means we'll make 3*65536/256 = 768 passes through this outer loop:
for(long firstPixelHue = 0; firstPixelHue < 3*65536; firstPixelHue += 256) {
for(int i=0; i<strip.numPixels(); i++) { // For each pixel in strip...
// Offset pixel hue by an amount to make one full revolution of the
// color wheel (range of 65536) along the length of the strip
// (strip.numPixels() steps):
int pixelHue = firstPixelHue + (i * 65536L / strip.numPixels());
// strip.ColorHSV() can take 1 or 3 arguments: a hue (0 to 65535) or
// optionally add saturation and value (brightness) (each 0 to 255).
// Here we're using just the single-argument hue variant. The result
// is passed through strip.gamma32() to provide 'truer' colors
// before assigning to each pixel:
strip.setPixelColor(i, strip.gamma32(strip.ColorHSV(pixelHue)));
}
strip.show(); // Update strip with new contents
delay(wait); // Pause for a moment
}
}

A smart house is 1 step closer to getting hacked into, and that's getting more and more sketchy than helpful. Minor stuff like step lights or stuff like that is fine, but security, wifi, doors, refrigerator, washer, anything that can connect to the wifi can get hack into.

I do this kind of stuff for a living and I have to say nothing about this install was professional at all, but it worked out for you. that driver is super cheap and sucks, ive seen them burn up. you keep saying 40amp driver but your running it on a 120v, 15amp/20amp breaker with 12/2 wiring which is inaccurate. I do these jobs in one day as requested by rich people that are demanding sometimes, they're hard to work with and don't want any dust or construction in their home for more than a day. it's tedious and exhausting but well worth the effort $$$. I don't code per se but that is the most impressive upgrade to this install you've done, so I'm assuming you're not in the trades but have a lot of experience coding.... also those sensors should have been mounted in the wall, no customer of mine would accept that from me also that box with low voltage wiring could have been so much better. anyway good job

Cool AF!

Going to send the link to your stair upgrade to our son (an aerospace engineer and home upgrade hobbit) and our grandson who is into robotics and wiring. Might be a great project for them to accomplish together.

Super super nice

most people would love that but most people can't do that. love love love it.

why Power supply with cord? do it straight to electrical socket

Michael jackson billie jean stairs.

Good work. Enjoyed watching that. Next project: Hollow out the handrail and hide the ugly PIR sensors.

Would love to know what 'sahdering' is.

I don't understand why you wouldn't be using the entire staircase at any one time. That needs only a motion detector at the top, and one at the bottom. If you want the animation just turnon steps from top down when the top motion detector is tripped and from the bottom up when the bottom sensor is tripped. Since you made your own light strips why didn't you make them the whole width of the steps? and why is the top one shorter and off center? It's great how you made the project box, I just don't know why you didn't hard wire it into the junction box instead of running a cord through the front and plugging it in from the front.

Next, rebuild the railing and integrate the sensors into the railing to make them less visible and obtrusive. project 2.0. :)
Love it!

Really nice job but i would have went with either velcro to mount them or magnets. Probably velcro as magnets have a shelf life

going down the stairs is fairly impactful on the body so having soft carpet is way better, it's also quieter and most importantly way grippier than solid wood, so I don't agree with your choice at all.

geez.... youre like my girlfriend - she says 'go big or go home' these are mad. i love the fact that you can program different modes. id have one for my little one when its time for bed, simple chaser that goes up the steps and she can follow them. god forbid she ever found the button. gotta go check out your other stuff

What kind of led strips are these? if i want to buy rgbw leds i only can find them with 5 wires and i only see 3 for each in the vidio

You should add it to a smart home ecosystem with the ESP 32 as it’s got Wi-Fi

Have you had issues with the light bars falling out of place? I'd be concerned with seasonal dimensional changes with only shims holding them in place. Also, hopefully you don't need close to the 40A of that power supply, those were some fairly thin wires connected to it. I suppose it was a short run to your distribution board, but still pretty thin looking.

Now you just need to program the Darth Vader theme to play only when you come down the stairs.

not sure why you didn't run the power up the gap on the right side of the stair and cross over on the bottom or top

I was planning on redoing my stairs with lights and resin kick plates. This looks fantastic

I am inspired by your project,I have no project experience. To learn from you what will the course fee?pls reply thank you.

My inside wall holding my stairs in place is walking and separating from my steps. I have to rebuild my stairs. Great video.

You should have pulled the wires for the power supply out the back of the junction box and wired them directly to the power supply. That way you have a much cleaner look without the cord coming out of the wall. Also, instead of an Arduino, you should have used a NodeMCU and flashed it with WLED. Other than that, outstanding....

really nice work. however, i think you way over built it and made it very difficult. there are way easier ways of doing this.

I'm starting to look into doing some of this stuff myself, but I think I'm going to go the route of getting a Home Assistant green to act as a Zigbee hub, and then for strips like these, I'll find some Zigbee compatible controllers. That should, theoretically, also open the door to a lot more automation potential, too. :)

Your stairs look great, by the way!

I used to be a builder and there's no way I would have raw wood steps. Your house your way. How many people have fallen down those stairs so far? I did an LED project personally. I think it looks better in about 10 minutes. I put a strip of LEDs underneath the handrail .. they turn on at dusk and they turn off at daybreak.

If you're trying to sell your programming course, I can understand the convoluted process of trying to light up your stairs, but otherwise everything about this project .. geez holy cow.

I really do like the cascading effect though.

I was glad to see that you used a vent to cover the transformer. I was expecting if it was closed up it may overheat.

The only thing I can think of is I wouldn't want the sensors to be so easy to see I would probably do a new handrail that's Hollow so you can put those sensors and run the wires to the inside of the handrail.

I wonder if the lights could have worked off pressure sensors under oak to set off the one in front, on top of, and behind

This is amazing! Is there any comercial version that is also programable? Would love to make something like this but the electronics are above my pay grade...

I would have wired the power supply into the electric outlet since it was right next to it. Save an outlet and hide the chord.