Some chinese vendors have started shipping a new led chip called TM1814 which is 12V and RGBW:
http://www.witop-tech.com/product-item/tm1814-programmable-digital-rgb-12v-rgbw-rgbww-led-strip/
Has anyone got it working with FastLED?
They list Arduino support but they can’t supply code examples or the required libraries so want to make sure it works before giving these a go.
I’m always curious what the compelling application for RGBW is. Is it mostly that you can make a thing that has “normal room light mode” and also “color animation mode”? Is there something else about RGBW that folks are thinking of?
To be clear: Dan and I do hope to eventually get RGBW support in there. We just need to clear out a bunch of personal time to tackle it.
Thanks for the fast replies 
Did see some progress on RGBW support in the github issue tracker but that was a fork using a different chipset.
@Mark_Kriegsman for large room lighting these are the only 12V leds I can find at the moment, other high-brightness and individual addressable are all 5V which isn’t doable for large distances (7-14 meters per zone).
Tried the WS2811 12V which work however just lack the brightness.
Using the Wemos D1 mini Pro at the moment and these are awesome, just need to find the proper led strips and if anyone knows of any alternatives please let me know.
@Mark_Kriegsman I’m working on an RGBW project right now, and you’ve got it exactly right. 90% of the time it’ll just be normal room light. Even in that case, I can see people using RGB to tint the room light a little warmer or cooler. So RGBW is pretty interesting.
Great; this is all more-or-less the sorts of things that I think RGBW is good for … which is an important step in the right direction! I’ve been known to overcomplicate and overengineer a thing now or then in my day; it’s good to see that “simple” will probably work here.
Another option for rgbw is text scrollers / displays. Having a nice white without having to mix (which is often a little inconsistent) for the text helps while you can still show colored graphics. Also one led uses less power and creates less heat than three, doesn’t it?
@Thomas_Balu_Walter Having a pre-mixed pure white is a nice option, but maybe not as important if you are using FastLED’s color correction (FastLED.setCorrection) to make sure the R G and B are in balance on your strip. Still a good option though.
As for power, basically the power draw comes from the amount of light you make, not the count of emitters. So brighter = more power, and it (mostly) doesn’t matter whether the brightness is coming from three 10mA LEDs or one 30mA LED. There are some efficiency differences between the different colors of LED chemistry, and there’s definitely a race for brightness efficiency in white LEDs because of the applications for general lighting. Wikipedia has a good table showing some of this under LED : Technology : Efficiency And Operational Parameters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode
The thing I’m trying not to get mired down in (and I think we’re not, which is great) is trying to invent a four-dimensional R G B W colorspace, and convert in and out of it all the time. I suspect our first RGBW support will be just that: a new class called CRGBW, and everything else just the same. Conversion from HSV colors will probably not use the W channel at first, but might later. And again, we have a bunch of personal things to attend to, but we’re thinking about RGBW support as one of the next things we’d want to tackle.
@Netsplite what are the advantages of this new chip, compared to WS2812 and others out there? I couldn’t tell from their website.
@Ryan_Cush It’s 12V and has a much higher brightness which is needed when using it as primary room lightning, 5V at that length + power draw you would need a lot more wiring to combat the voltage drops and a pretty expensive PSU with high amperage.
Initially went with WS2811 (12V variation) however when placed in ceiling they don’t produce enough light, found this alternative to TM1814 recently by a dutch retailer:
tested and works with FastLED as it’s using regular WS2812 RGB protocols but they are a bit expensive as I need 30-50 meters.
So still looking for alternatives at the moment but for primary room lighting and individual addressable market seems pretty limited, if anyone knows of any would be much appreciated.
If you’re happy with 12V RGB leds, search Alibaba for WS2815 strips, there are a number vendors. None on AliExpress yet though.
Tried a few vendors on Alibaba for the WS2815 but they are either not replying or can’t send Arduino code examples, do you know if these work with FastLED by any chance?
I’ve just noticed that the strip you linked to appears to have 5V LEDs. There are 3 LEDs per controller. The WS2815 type LEDs are genuine 12V LEDs, controlled individually, each plastic chip has 9 LEDs in it, 3 red, 3 blue and 3 green, and they’re supposed to be very bright…
Yeah and according to supplier they can go up to 42W per meter compared to the others which are ~20W, need some dedicated cooling for that I think.
Just got reply from supplier and they say SJ1221 uses WS2811 IC as well and is 1200 lumen p/m, 24W p/m instead of 14,4W so looks like the way to go for now just hope it’s bright enough for room lighting:
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Magic-dream-color-dc12v-SJ1221-SJ1211_60732335414.html
WS2815 I might order a sample to test but they can’t list what IC it really uses or give code examples.
I’ve gotten hooked on the data redundancy of ws2813 so it makes it hard to consider these other chips even though I’d love more brightness. If one led goes out, it isn’t a catastrophic situation.
I suppose eventually they will have those for the brighter chips. Though for most 12v setups you’d still probably lose a bank of 3 LEDs. The true individually addressable 12V sounds awesome but man, that’s a ton of power loss through heat, right??
http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/wiki/index.php?title=Choosing_a_Pixel_Voltage:_5V_vs_12V