Recently an example use of RGB LEDs has been to simulate various times of day by generating different shades of coloured lighting, such as inside the cabins of new aeroplanes. However you can also do this at home, and for some inspiration consider the following project by Helmut Wittek. He fitted a simple enclosure that resembles a small window to his bathroom wall, inside which is an Arduino controlling a variety of RGB LEDs. With some timing, the enclosure will display light similar to that found in his area at the current time of day - for example:
That's a clever way to brighten up a room without any external windows - for complete instructions check out Helmut's website. And we're on twitter and Google+, so follow us for news and product updates as well.
If you're looking to make your own RGB LED projects, consider the Freetronics RGBLED: full colour module. It includes a bright RGB LED on the top of the board and a WS2801 constant-current, addressable, multi-channel LED driver on the back. This smart module can be daisy-chained, so you can connect a number of these together in a string and drive each of the module colours individually from your microcontroller. For more information and to order, visit the product page.
