LumiCube from Abstract Foundry is the latest Kickstarter hoping to dress your Raspberry Pi in the finest RGB LEDs, but underneath the razzle dazzle there is quite a bit of tech for your money.
LumiCube features three sides of RGB LEDs, 192 individually controllable RGB LEDs to be exact. We're not sure if these are just WS2812 "Neopixels" or APA102 "Dotstar" LEDs, but no matter the tech, they look great. The laser-cut acrylic enclosure is designed for the Raspberry Pi 3 and Raspberry Pi 4, which can fit neatly inside the enclosure with just the ports on display.
For the lowest pledge, you get the enclosure, a 2W speaker, microphone and the RGB LED panels, but for a little more money you can add a 2-inch 320 x 240 resolution IPS screen, buttons and a light and gesture sensor. Or you can add a temperature / humidity sensor, pressure sensor and an inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensor, which can measure acceleration forces and gestures.
Controlling the cube is made possible thanks to a Python library written to abstract the complexities of working with the sensors and the RGB panels. For example, to scroll text across the three RGB panels, you just need to type a single line of Python!
So what can you use the cube for? It is much more than a desk toy. With the simple Python code and the extra sensors, you can get live traffic, weather, news scrolling across the panels, create your own home assistant or create a custom controller using the IMU and gestures.
Pledges start from £80, approximately $110, and as of writing LumiCube has already smashed its target of £5,000 ($7,000) and is now at £25,000 ($35,000) with 41 days still left on the campaign.
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Les Pounder is an associate editor at Tom's Hardware. He is a creative technologist and for seven years has created projects to educate and inspire minds both young and old. He has worked with the Raspberry Pi Foundation to write and deliver their teacher training program "Picademy".
