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A few days ago ThingM friend Rusty, operator of the wonderful SomaFM, wondered if there would ever be a “blink(16)”: a blink(1) with a 4×4 grid of LEDs. Well it turns out that due to a secret feature of all blink(1) mk2s, it’s actually pretty easy to make, if you have some WS2812-style LED strip laying around. Making a blink(1) mk2 use 16 extra LEDs is pretty easy because it has a hidden 3-pin port for wiring up WS2812/NeoPixel-type LED strips.  In this photo, you can see the three holes: one each for Gnd, +5V, and data.

Below is a video showing it in action.  The two ‘blink1-tool’ commands used in the video are:

Notice the “-l” option. Using this option, you can control a single LED in a blink(1) mk2. For instance, on a regular blink(1) mk2, you can do:

to make the top LED red and the bottom one blue. For the “random” and “running” commands, the “-l” option means how many LEDs to use.

Some build photos from Flickr: It´s limited to 16 additional LEDs, right?
I´m thinking about the possibility to realize a ambilight with only one blink(1) and WS2812 LEDs.
Connecting blink(1) to Prismatik would be great :)


Yes, the blink(1) mk2 can drive 18 LEDs total: two on the device and 16 additional.
Control with Prismatik sounds cool, I’ve got a LightPack as a KS backers, I should pull it out and try it again!

btw: blink(1) working well with the Watterott RGB rings (tested with two 8 LED rings)


Maybe Watterott is another good distributor for blink(1) in germany. It already offers your Blink1 products.

Hey René, that’s cool! Got any pics?

Hey Tod,

nothing secial, but check the link:


The pics are free to use :)

[…] ElectricFlow is a tool designed to orchestrate large-scale software delivery.  This is an increasingly notorious problem for everyone in the IoT space.  To demonstrate how ElectricFlow could work for automotive software delivery, ElectricCloud made a simulation using a Raspberry Pi and a few blink(1) lights. This is a great example of how blink(1)s can be useful: you need a simple non-screen indicator on your embedded system.  (and remember if you need more LEDs, blink(1)s can be hacked to add up to 18 LEDs) […]
