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History of Addressable LEDs

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Scottie:
Seasons Greetings!

I was watching an Christmas movie last night on Netflix, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deck_the_Halls_(2006_film) and had an epiphany.

I am ashamed to admit I have no idea when addressable LEDs became a reality.



The film was released in 2006. So, it would have likely been filmed early 2006, late 2005. In this example, I am assuming if the display was real, they used display tiles/modules which include an array of LEDs on one tile.

I took a look at WorldSemi's website (I believe to be the original designer of the WS281X LEDs). They state they were founded in 2007:
"WorldSemi was founded in 2007, we work as the leading LED specialist in IC designer for Constant Current LED Driver IC"

My google search skills seem to be failing me. Was the WS281x the first addressable pixel?

Thanks,

thm_w:
Was going to say it was CG, but the write up for what LED used is here: https://www.livedesignonline.com/business-people-news/color-kinetics-technology-stars-deck-halls

WS2812 seems to be the first.

SiliconWizard:
LED displays are pretty old. They were just using a bunch of ICs to drive the LED matrix instead of each LED having its own driver IC.
So not sure I get the question. Yes, LED matrix displays have existed for a few decades. Nobody has been waiting for the WS281X to build LED displays.

T3sl4co1l:
Well sure, LEDs have been around for a while, but you're not about to armor a house in stadium bigscreen modules!

Which themselves haven't been around for that long, as it took the introduction of GaN blues to make full color LED displays practical.  Which was early 2000s so, around there, and addressable strings are a natural evolution of that.

Impressive that they actually did it; almost as impressive is finding an actual press release claiming what they used.  Finding historic information on the net can be such a wash these days!

Tim

themadhippy:

--- Quote ---which themselves haven't been around for that long, as it took the introduction of GaN blues to make full color LED displays practical.  Which was early 2000s so, around there, and  strings are a natural evolution of that.
--- End quote ---
And before that addressable festoons,no fancy colour changing but at the time it was still impressive

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