Just received my pixelblazes and getting to grips with them. My use case is mostly having warm white lighting, with the occasional more interesting patterns for holidays etc. So I was planning on using SK6812 with warm white as my strips for efficiency. I’ve read how PB handles the white pixel in these, and whilst that would seem fine for a bright white, it would seem like a crazy approach for warm white. If I understand correctly - any colour sent to pixel would get tinted by the warm white as the white replaces some of the RGB. e.g. max RGB should give bright white - but PB would replace [256,256,256,0] that with Warm White [0,0,0,256].
Am I correct - and if so is there a better way to handle this - or should I not consider warm white as on option with PB?
I only have a little experience with these chips, but I wanted to explain a reason it might not matter to you, and you’ll probably be happy with how they work.
Most of the patterns that have colorful output will output fully saturated colors. These, by definition, are colors that are made up of one or two of the R, G, or B LEDs being on at any given time. As soon as all three are on at some intensity, you’ve begun “desaturating” the color and you’re outputting something between a pastel color and a white.
You probably read how Pixelblaze RGBW mode takes whatever the desaturated (white) energy component is and uses the more efficient white LED instead. So if the final color was supposed to be red at 25% intensity, green at 50% and blue at 100% (a pastel light turquoise blue), I believe the algorithm is going to use the white LED at 25%, red will be off, green then at 25%, and blue at 75%. Your concern, it if understand it, is that because the white is warm white, it will be tinted too much towards red, which in this case would means it might appear a little too whiteish blue and not greenish-blue enough.
I predict you’ll like it, unless you distinctly are hoping for cool blue sparkles and highlights amidst your otherwise colorful patterns. It’s probably going to feel a little like viewing a colorful outdoor scene at sunset instead of noon. I think you won’t notice it at all on the typical colored patterns that have little to no white in them. All-white patterns will be warm white, which is what it seems you want.
If anyone else has more direct experience with this problem, I’m curious about your perception.
I’ve had SK6812 WW LEDs set up in several rooms of my house for a few hears now. Here are my observations:
The “warm” white is actually fairly neutral. Desaturated RGB colors look great. Personally, I thought the cool and bright white versions skewed way too much towards blue.
Tried the [255,255,255,0] white. Not nice looking at all. It’s very, very blue. (there’s a picture of the two whites in the first post in this thread.)
The SK8612 is fantastic for room accents, and adding some diffuse light around the edges of a room. But unless you use a lot of them, they’re not great as a room’s “main” white lights. High CRI warm white bulbs or COB modules are brighter and less fatiguing. (I remember seeing a spectral analysis of the white from the SK6812 a couple of years ago – not really smooth, lots of sharp peaks and missing bits.)