Show HN: A web-based lighting controller built because my old became a brick

2 points

5 months ago

I’m a student and I built this because my old lightning controller (DMX) became a brick after the vendor’s control software was deprecated in 2025.

My focus was entirely on developing a robust backend architecture to guarantee maximum performance. Everything is released under GPLv3.

The current frontend is just a "vibecoded" dashboard made with plain HTML and JavaScript to keep rendering latency as low as possible. In earlier versions Svelte was used. Svelte added too much complexity for an initial mvp.

Video: https://streamable.com/95kd4r Repo: https://github.com/Arian-Ott/hyperion

Technical Details: The system uses a distributed architecture where a FastAPI server manages the state in a Redis. State changes are pushed via WebSockets to Raspberry Pi gateways, which then independently maintain the constant 44Hz binary stream to the lights. This "push model" saves massive amounts of bandwidth and ensures low latency. In a stress test, I processed 10 universes (5,120 channels) at 44Hz with zero packet loss (simulated). An OTP-based pairing makes the setup extremely simple (plug-and-play).

I’m looking forward to your feedback on the architecture and the Redis approach!

Happy New Year!