OK, so I probably spent way too much time making these dumb lights smart, but It just needed to happen! ESP32, ESPHome and Home Assistant to the rescue! I made a bad purchasing decision a few years ago. At the time, these cheap pole accent lights seemed like exactly the thing I needed, but the remote made me crazy. So, instead of buying new ones, I decided to fix these ones with some electronics. I used an ESP32, some resistors, some MOSFETs, and a new power supply to make a smart controller. I even created my own custom PCB using an app called Fritzing. I used ESPHome to program the ESP32 and then connected it to Home Assistant to handle all the automation. Now I'm happy with these lights. Home Assistant: https://www.home-assistant.io/ ESPHome: https://esphome.io/index.html Fritzing: https://fritzing.org/ Home assistant light template: https://github.com/gmorse81/HA-backup/blob/master/configuration.yaml#L43 Fritzing file: https://github.com/askcloudarchitech/light-automation-Home-assistant-esphome-example/blob/master/lights.fzz videos mentioned in this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZYxZyq5l6c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpv3nMLzSFI 00:00 - Turning Dumb Lights Smart 00:17 - The Problem with My Lights 00:43 - Attempt 1 - IR Blaster 01:18 - Dumb Light Disassembly 01:54 - The unknown LED strip 03:41 - All the parts necessary to smarten these lights 04:23 - Wiring the Color LEDs 05:43 - Wiring the White LEDs 06:33 - Disaster Strikes! 07:31 - Designing and Building a Custom PCB 08:35 - The Finished Product 08:54 - Wrapping it up with Home Assistant Software