[HN Gopher] Show HN: Remote-Controlled IKEA Deathstar Lamp
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: Remote-Controlled IKEA Deathstar Lamp
Repainting the iconic IKEA PS 2014 lamp into the Deathstar from
Star Wars has been a popular IKEA hack for quite some time. This
variant additionally replaces the manual, rope-operated mechanism
to open and close the lamp with a remote-controlled motor. The
firmware is based on ESPHome, and its excellent Home Assistant
integration enables one to implement higher-level features, like a
"sundial" where the aperture of the Deathstar follows the sun
elevation throughout the day (see the timelapse video). That said,
I will not consider this project as complete until the Imperial
March can be played over the stepper motor (just like the legendary
Floppotron) ;-)
Author : sephalon
Score : 250 points
Date : 2025-04-27 06:25 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gitlab.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gitlab.com)
| timzaman wrote:
| Didn't know anyone still used gitlab. Also video not working..
| mimischi wrote:
| The embedded video in the README is working just fine in Safari
| on iOS
| solosito wrote:
| Not for me
| wbnns wrote:
| Doesn't seem to work in Brave
| esperent wrote:
| I'm using Brave on Android, works fine. Maybe the author
| updated it?
| thenthenthen wrote:
| Safari iOS not working here either
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| Doesn't work in desktop Safari either.
| kjrrp wrote:
| Doesn't work in Firefox for Android ("file is corrupt").
| shrx wrote:
| Works in Waterfox.
| stavros wrote:
| How about this?
|
| https://gitlab.com/sephalon/deathstar_lamp/-/blob/master/doc...
| razemio wrote:
| iOS (all the sma browsers / safari) it does not load.
| Download is jot an issue.
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| Plays in VLC if you download it.
| elkos wrote:
| Why so?
| ramon156 wrote:
| > Didn't know anyone still used gitlab
|
| Why wouldn't someone use gitlab
| nicce wrote:
| For self-hosting, there are non-profits available, and in
| commercial world pricing got out of hand when comparing
| features. GitHub dominates too much.
| sephalon wrote:
| Thanks for letting me know about the video playback issue, I
| used the following script to create the timelapse:
| ffmpeg \ -pattern_type glob \ -framerate 30 \
| -i "img/*.JPG" \ -i "star_wars_style_march.mp3" \
| -s:v 1920x1080 \ -c:a libopus \ -c:v vp9 \
| -shortest \ deathstar_timelapse.webm
|
| I actually thought that VP9 and Opus are well supported
| everywhere by now, but maybe that is not the case...
|
| Regarding GitLab, as a general rule, I try to avoid products
| dominating the market, and I quite like their OSS policy...
| rcarmo wrote:
| You should have used mp4. Not all browsers support vp9.
| watermelon0 wrote:
| VP9/WEBM should be supported by all modern browsers:
| https://caniuse.com/webm
| stuaxo wrote:
| Android Firefox says it won't play because it's corrupted.
| sephalon wrote:
| I have converted the timelapse to H.264/AAC, hope this plays
| everywhere now.
| larusso wrote:
| Cool project indeed. I used to own the first model and thought
| about how one could motorize the lamp. I used to own the one
| which didn't have the reflected coating on the inside panels. At
| least in Germany they changed that a few years back from plain
| white to silver or gold reflection. And now the lamp is also
| available in bigger sizes. I bought it like most because of the
| interesting design. But was never really pleased with it.
| Practical use of keeping it closed is zero. I guess that was the
| reason to motorize it ;) But even in the open configuration it's
| so dark that it's unusable as a promised light source.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| I have the one with copper inside coating, it works well as a
| lamp above the dining table with an 800 lumen LED lamp in it. I
| usually don't even have it set to the highest brightness.
| larusso wrote:
| Maybe the coated ones do work better. For my use the lamp was
| simply not bright enough.
| eastbound wrote:
| Oh, no: the practical reason to keep it closed is when you
| switch it on at night, it shouldn't suddenly brighten up the
| room at max volume, but open up progressively so your eyes can
| accomodate.
|
| Of course if you live with someone, you don't switch on the
| lights at night ;)
| sephalon wrote:
| Part of the reason for automating it was that I wanted to
| integrate the lamp into my home theater setup: When the movie
| starts, the lamp slowly closes and synchronously dims out
| (guests always react with a smile to this). Pressing the pause
| button dims it up again and gives one just enough light to find
| the bathroom ;-)
| jansan wrote:
| What a gem of a project. I am a huge fan of the PS 2014. To me it
| is one of the best IKEA products ever, even better than the
| discontiued Broder shelf system. We bought the large version with
| copper reflector for my son's room almost ten years ago and until
| today the mechanism works and it just looks great (it "ties the
| room together" for those who know). My idea was to replace the
| balls on the strings with little iron cast x-wings from a key
| chain ring, but they would always fly into the wrong direction,
| because the connector is at the back of the x-wing. I do not want
| some x-wings constantly flying cowardly away from our death star.
|
| This project looks awesome and I will give it a shot, because it
| actually looks doable for a first ESP32 project. But I will first
| try it on the smaller version of the PS 2014 before I start
| working on my son's lamp.
| progbits wrote:
| When expanded and illuminated red from within it looks like
| it's exploding, so you can think of it as xwings retreating to
| safe distance after successful bombing run :)
| kqr wrote:
| Why does this lamp make people think of the death star? Me and my
| wife bought it ten years ago because of the cool mechanism and
| immediately started calling it the death star, but I struggle to
| see what the resemblance really is.
| saaaaaam wrote:
| I find your comment very confusing! You don't understand why
| people call it the Death Star but as soon as you got the lamp
| you started calling it the Death Star but you struggle to see
| the resemblance? Surely you've answered your own question...?!
| kqr wrote:
| No. This is a case where I am confused by my own behaviour as
| well! Clearly there is something about it but it's not
| something I'm conscious about.
| danielbln wrote:
| I always called it DustStar because God damn does it
| collect dust.
| tekla wrote:
| Because it looks like the Death Star.
| croes wrote:
| The question is why all see the same and not just OP
| enlyth wrote:
| Because it.. kind of looks like the death star?
| jansan wrote:
| Three simple reasons:
|
| - It's spherical
|
| - The pattern of the tiles slightly resembles the pattern on
| the death star
|
| - When you open it, it looks like it "explodes", like every
| proper death star eventually does
| croes wrote:
| I think it's the angular shapes on a globe that triggers that.
|
| https://starcorridors.github.io/src/img/death-star.png
| keyle wrote:
| Just in time for May 4th. Well done!
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I owned one of these lights before it went viral and it was a
| nightmare to install. The thing doesn't screw into the ceiling
| like every other light figure does. Instead you install a hook
| and dangle the damn thing off the hook. Which means the plastic
| surround never goes flush with the ceiling.
|
| Even when you do finally get it flush after several painful
| iterations of hanging it, gravity stretches the cord causing the
| base to come slightly away from the ceiling again.
|
| If you're OCD like me, it made the light a horrible reminder of
| that OCD. So in the end I gave up on the light.
|
| Pity because it's a really cool looking light.
| nemetroid wrote:
| Never seen a light fixture that screws into the ceiling.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Some fixtures screw into an electrical box attached to the
| studs in the ceiling. The IKEA SIMRISHAMN pendant does that,
| for example.
| nemetroid wrote:
| Looking at the Ikea _US_ website, the Simrishamn and PS
| 2014 seem to have similar solutions: a plate that screws
| into an electrical box and provides a hook (the lowest
| common international denominator).
|
| What do you do if you want to move a ceiling light a bit to
| the side? Do you install an entire new electrical box?
| hnlmorg wrote:
| If those electrical boxes are anything like the ones in
| the video I shared, then they're trivial to move.
|
| You don't actually need the box though. In fact they
| weren't even available in my previous two homes. It's
| really more a convenience thing than anything.
|
| But again, this is assuming we are talking about the same
| thing (region differences and all).
| linsomniac wrote:
| In the US, NEC and most local codes (which are often
| based on some version of the NEC) require that
| connections be made inside a box. This is largely because
| connections are the most likely place for an electrical
| fire to start and the box helps contain it.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I can't speak for where you are, but it's the norm in the uk.
| Eg around 4:25 in this video
| https://youtu.be/WZizlnLfLks?si=LjRI1EWIHhn6Ktgx
|
| When I bought the Ikea light, it was just hook and no way to
| fix the plastic surround to the ceiling.
|
| Ikea might have updated the light since then though. As I
| said before, I got the light when it was new, long before it
| went viral, and ikea might have tweaked the design since.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| You haven't been to Germany, I guess. Or the Netherlands.
| Ambroos wrote:
| I wonder if this is a Swedish thing. I recently moved to a
| newly built apartment in Stockholm (as a non-Swede). All spots
| to put a ceiling light come with a hook and DCL socket, so it
| makes it super easy to swap lamps.
| bitwize wrote:
| This lamp made a big splash among game designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi
| and his friends/fans a few years back, because it resembles the
| first boss of Rez (on which Mizuguchi was the lead):
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tStDX7QHNwI
|
| When I saw this story I didn't recognize the model number and I
| thought "Hey, is that the Rez lamp?" sure enough...
| badmonster wrote:
| Can the Deathstar lamp firmware be customized to add new modes,
| like an automatic opening and closing cycle synced to music or
| other triggers?
| gitroom wrote:
| lmao that lamp always made me wanna try something like this but i
| never had the patience gotta ask though, stuff like this - does
| it stay fun after the novelty wears off
| Create wrote:
| I've got to say, the IKEA PS 2014 lamp is really a Death Star -
| not just because of its spherical shape, but also because it
| played a significant role in bankrupting the factory that
| produced it. According to Wikipedia, the Szarvasi Vas-Femipari
| Zrt. factory in Hungary had big plans to expand its production in
| 2011, including manufacturing high-end design lamps for Western
| European markets. By 2018, they had invested 2 billion forints in
| a development project that would make them the exclusive supplier
| of one of IKEA's lamp families. At its peak, the factory was
| producing 130,000 coffee makers and 2 million lamps per year.
| However, it seems that producing the PS 2014 lamp at a price
| point that was too low to be sustainable ultimately led to the
| factory's downfall. It's a cautionary tale about the risks of
| prioritizing low costs over sustainability and fair labor
| practices. The Death Star lamp may have been a stylish and
| affordable addition to many homes, but its production came at a
| significant cost to the workers and community involved.
| m463 wrote:
| This reminds me of a sort of adjacent hack, or maybe adaptation.
|
| I bought one of those ikea lamps, but never put it into service
| because it was a hardwired lamp, which made it a "project"
| installation.
|
| Then one day at home depot, I noticed they sell an adapter from
| hanging lamp to track lighting rail. Wire the adapter, snap into
| tracklight over dining table.
|
| It might be easier to use ikea ceiling lamps this way.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-04-27 23:00 UTC)