PlatformIO Skill

PlatformIO manages the ESP32 firmware for VanDaemon's 8-channel PWM LED dimmer. The firmware handles MQTT communication, WiFi provisioning via captive portal, and NVS state persistence. All firmware lives in hw/LEDDimmer/firmware/.

Quick Start

Build and Upload

cd hw/LEDDimmer/firmware

# Build for 8-channel variant (default)
pio run -e 8ch

# Upload via USB
pio run -e 8ch -t upload

# Build 4-channel variant
pio run -e 4ch -t upload

Monitor Serial Output

# Start serial monitor at 115200 baud
pio device monitor -e 8ch

# Monitor with timestamp
pio device monitor -e 8ch --filter time

Key Concepts

Concept	Usage	Example
Environment	Build target variant	`-e 8ch`, `-e 4ch`, `-e 8ch-ota`
Upload	Flash firmware to device	`pio run -e 8ch -t upload`
Monitor	Serial debugging	`pio device monitor`
Clean	Remove build artifacts	`pio run -t clean`
OTA	Over-the-air updates	`-e 8ch-ota` environment

Common Patterns

Full Development Cycle

When: Making firmware changes

# Clean, build, upload, then monitor
pio run -e 8ch -t clean && pio run -e 8ch -t upload && pio device monitor -e 8ch

OTA Update

When: Device deployed and accessible via WiFi

# Build and upload via OTA (requires device IP in platformio.ini)
pio run -e 8ch-ota -t upload

Upload Filesystem

When: Updating SPIFFS/LittleFS data

pio run -e 8ch -t uploadfs

Pin Configuration

// PWM Outputs (8 channels)
GPIO 25, 26, 27, 14, 4, 5, 18, 19

// Status LED (WS2812)
GPIO 16

// Buttons
GPIO 32 (Button 1), GPIO 33 (Button 2)

MQTT Integration

The firmware publishes to topics under vandaemon/leddimmer/{deviceId}/:

status - online/offline
config - device configuration JSON
channel/{N}/state - current brightness (0-255)

Subscribes to channel/{N}/set for brightness commands.

See the mqttnet skill for backend MQTT handling.

Related Skills

kicad - PCB design for the LED dimmer hardware
mqttnet - Backend MQTT communication with the dimmer
docker - Running MQTT broker for testing

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