Posts with tag: Arduino

Driving NeoPixel LEDs (and compatibles) with 800kHz on 8MHz AVR microcontrollers is a challenge. Here I present an alternative approach to bit banging. By using the PWM hardware it is more versatile than previous solutions and can be used for other purposes as well.

If something is sold with phrases like “like …” or “compatible to …” or “drop in replacement for …” and in the same time it is much cheaper, then you should think twice if it is worth the money. In some cases I had to learn it the hard way.

Most time, the wireless communication between embedded devices like the Arduino happens in plain text. While block ciphers like AES are too bulky in terms of speed, payload and object code size, stream ciphers like RC4 do not offer a high level of security through the lack of diffusion. In this post I will describe a new method to use a modified stream cipher that offers diffusion and also works with no overhead on small payloads, that are common in such devices.