komby  (kmb)

The Komby environment leverages the ubiquity of the Arduino — a microprocessor married to an easy-to-use integrated development environment — with the low cost of Nordic Semiconductor's 2.4GHz digital radios, allowing for holiday lighting sequences developed on a variety of music-illumination applications, such as Vixen 2.x, Vixen3, Vixen+, Nutcracker/xLights, Light-o-Rama or Hinckle's Light Sequencer, to be transmitted wirelessly to lighting props that can accept Renard or DMX input or protocol for a variety of popular pixels that run at 12 or five volts, such as LPD8806, SM16716, TM1804, TM1809, UCS1903, WS2801 or WS2811 (WS2812, etc.).

Komby hardware designs, are freely shared and Komby software is licensed under the Creative Commons ShareAlike 3.0 U.S. license. The Komby environment is based on the work of others (most especially the Arduino group and the FastLEDdevelopment group). For the convenience of hobbyists, Komby.com sells printed circuit boards and bills of material.

The primary beauty of the Komby environment is that it can accept inputs from a variety of protocols — Open DMX, DMX Pro, E1.31or Renard — and can then output in all those same protocols (as well as drive pixels), mixing and matching as necessary. A previous necessity for hobbyists to standardize on one lighting technology or another no longer exists.

Secondly, a Komby-based system allows for inexpensive, concentrated usage without the need for "null" pixels or problematically long signal runs. A Komby receiver runs around $14 (without power supply) and can drive up to 512 individual devices (single-channel props or 170 three-channel pixels). Further, the receiver is only about 1½-inches by 2¼-inches and can be housed in a PVC pipe or some other small enclosure.

Thirdly, Komby equipment can be used as a basis for Arduino experimentation and because of its open nature, a number of hobbyists are working at becoming developers and providers to the Komby world.

Lastly, you might ask: who or what is Komby? Once the nickname of software engineer living in Sacramento, Calif., up until recently Komby has been Greg Scull, but starting in 2013, the word now equates to a community of like-minded individuals who experiment with digital technology and the equipment they use for holiday light shows.

Regarding komby's creations:

  Some of the items here are things which komby has created.  These are not certified designs, UL certified, or any other certification.  Please accept that with these items there is some inherent risk of failure or general omissions, issues, typos, glitches, and all out failure.  komby really tried to prevent this,  alas it could happen.

Please note:

  Many items in the site are in stock.  Some are not.  Items which are not instock should be clearly marked.   For those items which display as backorder you are still able to purchase these,  however your order will not ship until all items are in stock.  

With a goal for komby.com of keeping costs down for you as much as possible,  the items which are on backorder are most likely coming directly from a supplier overseas.  The lead times on some of these backorder items are 3-6 weeks.  The stock stats and expected wait times should be clearly marked at time of purchase.  It may be wrong and you will be notified as soon as possible about the availablility.

Pre Sale Items: 

  From time to time Pre Sale Items may be offered.  These sales will include an up front purchase of goods and will likely take a few months for delivery.  You will be notified periodically during the Pre Sale duration to set expectations and understanding. 

Please know that this is not amazon.  You should be able to get your in stock items quickly,  use the contact us form if you have any questions.

Thank you for your support.