⚠️ Photosensitivity Warning Patternflow displays rapidly changing light patterns that may trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised. If you experience any discomfort, stop use immediately.
Patternflow is an open-source LED synthesizer. Play light patterns with your fingertips — four physical knobs reshape generative light on an LED matrix in real time. A pattern is just a small file, so every Patternflow plays every pattern we make.
- 🔨 Build it — the Full Build Guide (official PCB + 3D-printed enclosure), or solder-free with the Breadboard Build Guide. Every other route is in the Assembly Map.
- 🎛️ Try it right now — the Live Editor is a working Patternflow in your browser. No hardware, no install, no account.
- 📦 Get one ready-made — pre-launch on Crowd Supply. Subscribe to hear the moment the campaign opens.
- 🌀 Share what you make — the Community is where patterns get published, remixed and forked.
Moving fast. v3.0.0 is out — hybrid USB-C / screw-terminal power, zero SMD passives, a snap-fit enclosure with no more panel trimming, and a video-first build guide. On v2.x hardware? Everything you need stays bundled at v2.1.0. Follow the changelog and the journal for what's current.
| Display | 128 × 64 HUB75 RGB LED matrix, P2.5 (320 × 160 mm) |
| Brain | ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 N16R8 (16 MB flash, 8 MB PSRAM) — standalone, no sending card |
| Input | 4× EC11 rotary encoders with push-switch; long-press encoder 4 to switch patterns |
| Power | 5 V over USB from any power bank — about 4 h per 10,000 mAh at max brightness (see runtime) |
| Size / weight | 245 × 325 × 36 mm (9.6 × 12.8 × 1.4 in) · 933 g (2.06 lb) |
| Firmware | Arduino-compatible C++, modular pattern architecture, runtime switching (no reflash) |
| Flashing | Everything from the browser (Chrome/Edge) — stock firmware, and custom patterns compiled by the build server; after the first USB flash, new builds can go over Wi-Fi. Arduino IDE only for firmware development or other matrix resolutions |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi — bidirectional OSC (Ableton/Max/TouchDesigner) and audio-react WebSocket · USB |
| Build | ~1 h hands-on (≈30 min soldering + ≈30 min assembly — first-build friendly) + ~10 h 3D printing · around US$100 in parts (BOM) |
| License | MIT (firmware & web code) · CC-BY-SA 4.0 (hardware, docs, bundled patterns) · community patterns are licensed by their authors (summary) |
Patternflow runs off any standard USB power bank that can supply a couple of amps at 5 V — no wall adapter needed, so it stays portable. In testing, a 40,000 mAh bank dropped about 13% over 2 hours at full brightness, which is roughly 15 hours on a full charge, or about 4 hours per 10,000 mAh:
| Power bank | Approx. runtime (max brightness) |
|---|---|
| 10,000 mAh | ~4 hours |
| 20,000 mAh | ~8 hours |
| 40,000 mAh | ~15 hours |
These are worst-case numbers measured with a bright pattern at maximum brightness. Most patterns draw less, and lowering the brightness (long-press encoder 1) extends runtime well beyond these figures.
The Live Editor opens with a preset library of 42 patterns — months of daily pattern-making, each loadable in one click and remixable right in the browser. The stock firmware, presets included, flashes to the device straight from the browser; your own remixes go into a custom slot (see below).
On the device, the firmware bundles 34 curated presets in a single image, switchable without reflashing — and your own patterns install alongside them as .pfm modules over Wi-Fi, up to 128 of them, no reflash needed. The device carries fewer presets than the browser because the on-board set is a curated showcase, not the whole library; anything left out is one Pattern Lab build away.
- It boots into Origin — concentric sine waves sampled by an emergent grid.
- Long-press encoder 4 to cycle through the patterns on the device.
The Community is the home for patterns people make. Open anyone's pattern, turn its knobs, edit the code and watch it change — all without an account. Take one into Pattern Lab to remix it — publishing it back records the fork, so you can see what grew out of what. Patterns that carry a hardware-tested .h header are marked, and you can filter for them when you want something to flash right now.
Signing in is username and password only, with email optional — it never routes through a service that might be blocked where you are.
New pattern studies also go up on Instagram almost daily, and the Discord patterns channel remains a good place to hang around and talk about them. Come for a pattern you saw on a post, stay to share your own.
Patternflow ships with prompt templates designed for AI coding assistants (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.), and the whole journey from idea to hardware runs in the browser — no toolchain. The Live Editor is where you start, Pattern Lab is where a pattern becomes firmware, and the Community is where it goes when it's done.
Start in the Live Editor — a full Patternflow simulator, and the quick taste. Turn the virtual knobs and the on-screen device behaves exactly like the real one, down to the encoder detents. You don't need the hardware to begin:
- Click Copy creation prompt and paste it into your AI assistant along with a description of the look you want.
- Paste the JavaScript it returns into the editor and turn the virtual knobs to test the pattern live.
The Live Editor is where you find out you want to make patterns. It stays deliberately light — the stock firmware flashes straight from it, and everything below is where the making happens.
Go deeper in Pattern Lab — the full studio, and where patterns become firmware:
- Generate variations in batches, in-app (bring your own free Gemini key) or via copy-paste prompts.
- Shape color ramps, retune knob ranges, and compose for custom matrix sizes.
- Build firmware — the build server compiles a complete firmware image with your pattern in it (about 30 seconds) and your browser writes it to the board over USB (desktop Chrome/Edge, Web Serial). Nothing to install: no IDE, no board package, no editing the pattern registry by hand. The first flash sets up Wi-Fi too, and from then on Send over Wi-Fi pushes new builds to the device without a cable.
- Share to Community — publish it; remixes and forks get recorded, so you can see what grew out of what. Community patterns marked
.hskip conversion entirely and offer Flash to my board directly.
From the Arduino IDE — only needed for firmware feature development or targeting an LED matrix with a different resolution. Open firmware/patternflow/patternflow.ino, drop the C++ into presets/preset_<name>.h as-is, add the namespace from the bottom of the file to presetPatterns[] in pattern_registry.h, and flash. (For just adding a pattern you don't need this at all — build it as a .pfm module and send it over Wi-Fi.) See firmware/patternflow/README.md.
No GLSL or rendering pipeline knowledge needed. The template handles the encoder mapping, brightness curve, and HUB75 buffer interface; you describe the visuals.
Either way you are flashing a whole firmware image, and the preset library always comes along. Patterns you installed as .pfm modules sit on a separate partition and survive the reflash.
patternflow.work is not a companion page — it's half the instrument. The three tools above live there. So do the two records that show the project working in the open.
Build map — a globe of Patternflows built around the world, and the goal is simple: cover it with pins. The build map is also what we means in "every pattern we make": every pin is a person who built one from these files, in their own material, wherever they are. If you've made one, share it in Discord and it goes on the map.
Journal — Patternflow is treated as art, so the whole process is documented transparently: the events, the emotions, and the thinking behind every step, written up at least once a week since the beginning. Including the parts that went badly. If you want to know why this project exists — and what it costs to keep it alive — start there.
Bidirectional OSC. Over Wi-Fi, Patternflow speaks OSC in both directions: knob turns, button presses, and pattern switches stream out to a remote host (Ableton Live, Max/MSP, TouchDesigner — anything that speaks OSC), and incoming OSC messages drive the device exactly like physical encoder motion. Play Patternflow as a controller for your set, let your set drive the light, or both at once. If you play MIDI instruments, this will feel like home. For Ableton Live Suite there's a ready-made Max for Live bridge in integrations/ableton — click Connect, map the four knobs to any Live parameters, done. The wire protocol is documented in docs/osc-spec.md.
Audio-react. Patternflow can also react to browser audio: the experimental Chrome/Edge extension in tools/patternflow-audio-extension captures the current tab's audio, analyzes four FFT bands, and sends lightweight WebSocket knob values to the device. The firmware converts those into virtual encoder motion, so every encoder-driven pattern responds — no audio code needed in the patterns themselves.
Patternflow is built around a standalone ESP32-S3 driving a HUB75 RGB LED matrix at low resolution — each pixel reads as a discrete point of light, with its own brightness and color. Four rotary encoders feed firmware written in Arduino-compatible C++ around a modular pattern architecture: each pattern is a self-contained module with its own setup, update, and draw routines, while the shared framework handles input, LED rendering, mode transitions, and color calibration. The PCB was designed by the artist; the enclosure is 3D-printed by default, with stainless steel, transparent acrylic, and laser-cut variations in progress.
Make it easy. Make it fun. Make it yours. Interactive media art usually demands serious capital, custom engineering, and years of specialized skill — an entry fee paid long before anyone gets to participate in anything. Patternflow removes it: the hardware files, firmware, 3D models, browser editor, and AI prompts are all public, so anyone can build their own, make their own patterns, test them in the browser, and load them onto the device.
This is a contemporary reinterpretation of Nam June Paik's Participation TV (1963). Paik let the audience change the image; Patternflow lets you make it — and give it away. That is the step after participation: from intervening in a work to making, modifying, and sharing it.
So Patternflow is not a single luminous object. It is a living system in which a physical experience extends outward into open-source making and community creation. We're not making art easier to watch. We're making it easier to make. The longer version lives in the manifesto and the journal.
| Folder | Contents |
|---|---|
firmware/ |
Arduino code for ESP32-S3, plus the custom pattern template |
hardware/ |
Enclosure files and electronics source files (case, PCB, Gerbers, schematic PDF) |
web/ |
Next.js site (landing, Live Editor, Pattern Lab, community, browser flasher & build server, journal) |
docs/ |
Assembly map, build-guide media, manifesto, license summary |
tools/ |
Desktop-side helpers, including the audio-react browser extension |
integrations/ |
Host-software bridges — Ableton Live / Max for Live (OSC knob mapping) |
Docs: Full Build Guide · Assembly Map · Custom Patterns · Community · Changelog · License Summary
Links: patternflow.work · Community · Crowd Supply · Releases · Discord · Instagram
Builds, documentation fixes, part sourcing tips, and custom patterns are all welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md for how contributions flow (including the inbound = outbound pattern licensing).
Patterns go to the Community, builds and questions to Discussions or the Discord — whichever you can reach. Show a build in Discussions or Discord to get it pinned on the build map.
| When | Milestone |
|---|---|
| Jan 2026 | Patternflow: Origin — the first work as a new media artist, built around 3D-printed forms and the seed of what became Patternflow · visited the Nam June Paik Art Center |
| Mar 2026 | The Origin pattern ran on a physical LED matrix with four knobs for the first time |
| Apr 2026 | Instagram and the Arduino subreddit responded strongly — 150,000+ views and 3,700 upvotes — and the community asked for the files, not a product, so Patternflow went open source · first PCB fabricated (sponsored by PCBWay) · website live |
| May 2026 | Reached 100 GitHub stars · the first collaborator joined · Crowd Supply agreement · Discord community growing |
| Jun 2026 | Crowd Supply pre-launch page live, backed by countless refinements toward mass production · Instagram passed 1,000 followers · first community-made pattern shared |
| Jul 2026 | Refining the design for mass production · growing an active community · outreach and promotion |
| Next | Run the Crowd Supply campaign at the lowest sustainable price · send Patternflow further out into the world · collaborate with more artists · earn academic recognition |
| 2028 | Grow Patternflow into a self-sustaining community and ecosystem — then move on to the next project |
📖 Longer write-ups and the full story behind each step live on the journal.
Patternflow's PCB fabrication and 3D-printed enclosure are sponsored by PCBWay. The first PCB came back clean and on-spec, ordering was straightforward, and the team has been genuinely responsive throughout — the support that made these milestones possible.
The first Patternflow PCB, fabricated by PCBWay.
The SPDX header inside a file is the authority — folders are not license boundaries. Full breakdown in the License Summary.
- Firmware & web code — MIT (LICENSE-MIT)
- Hardware, designs & docs — CC-BY-SA 4.0 (LICENSE-CC-BY-SA)
- Bundled patterns (the presets shipped in the firmware and the editor) — CC-BY-SA 4.0, per-file SPDX headers.
- Patterns contributed to the repository — inbound = outbound: by sending a pattern as a PR, issue or Discord post you license it under CC-BY-SA 4.0, attribution kept in the code header (no CLA). See CONTRIBUTING.md.
- Patterns published to the Community — licensed by their author, either CC-BY-SA 4.0 (default) or CC-BY-4.0. Both permit commercial use with credit; CC-BY-SA additionally requires adaptations to stay under the same license. A fork can never be looser than what it came from, and carries a
Based on:credit to the original author in its source.
"Patternflow" is a trademark of SeungHun Lee.
The Patternflow series: LED Synthesizer (2026) · Origin (2026)