The OoberLights Micro RGB LED Module features 21 addressable LEDs arranged in three concentric rings. Or two concentric rings of 12 and 8 around a single LED, depending on how you’d like to view it. These can be controlled with the standard Arduino NeoPixel library, and besides a couple of capacitors and connection pads on the back, there’s little more to this board.
The unique feature of this board is its footprint: at 18mm x 18mm; it’s actually the size of a keyboard keycap, which is a lot of LEDs to fit on such a small control surface. Of course, it would need the proper adapter to fit on a key switch, a project that creator patshead.com is still contemplating.
While the OoberLights Micro is little more than a clever LED breakout, the story of its inspiration and build is quite interesting, as Pat humorously outlines in the product listing. The short story is that he’s been working on a larger version for quite some time. After receiving several JC Pro Macro keyboard prototypes (from me incidentally), he realized he could use the included breakout pins to control such a lighting apparatus.
You can see it in action in the video below, blinking under control of the macro pad. One could in theory use it for any sort of indication, such as for disk utilization or network traffic. The listing also has a well explained USPS letter shipping rate, though if you’re considering a similar arrangement, you might check out my Perfect Your Tindie Shipping Game post.
