Hi All.
I am working on a project for a Fish tank. I want to control a fish feeder (servo), read temperature, read ambient light and use Neo pixels to lit up the tank in the appropriate color for the fishes depending on the ambient light and/or time. I also want to read a switch for low water level.
I am wondering if having all this controlled by a single Photon (vaguely knowing that Neo pixels require some speed) would be enough or should I factor in an Arduino as a sub system for the Neo pixels?
I haven’t used Neo pixels in the past and I am researching, but any info would be welcomed!
What’s the rate that you want to poll all the data and adjust the light colour?
If you are not changing colour continuously, the Photon would be sufficient.
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I will probably poll every other second or maybe every 10s…
As for light I wanted to do slow animation of a wave effect on the strip. But if this is too heavy I will probably change intensity every second or so. Son it too much.
So the neopixels only require me to send data on change ?
NeoPixels only need a precise timing while updating the LEDs, but once that’s done they don’t pose any impact on the controller anymore.
So no worries about having NeoPixels occupy the controller not leaving room for other tasks 
Even if you rewrite the colors every 25~100ms you shouldn’t have any trouble.
BTW, using an interrupt for your low-level sensor might be an option so you won’t need to poll regularly.
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