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WLED (upstream) — monthly activity digest

What landed on wled/WLED's main branch, month by month. External-context reference — a factual log of a friend repo's releases, not projectMM's own history or roadmap. Newest month on top. The reusable prompt that generates these lives in README.md.

Months are not split at release dates: upstream WLED cuts releases from separate release branches (0_15, 16_x), so the version tags aren't on main — main is the development trunk that feeds future releases. Each month notes which release shipped, as context.

August 2026

A quieter, consolidation month on main after July's V5 platform switch: the toolchain moved forward again, drawing and segment bugs got fixed, and a set of long-open field reports were finally closed. No versioned release was published in August, so the month is not split.

New - Trunk builds move to ESP-IDF 5.5.4, and the ESP32-C5 target now builds on the same platform as the rest (its NTP workaround is gone, so time settings behave normally there). - The Waveshare ESP32-S3 HUB75 build gains the SHTC3 v2 temperature and humidity sensor usermod. - Effects can now load palettes from their own code, so an effect can pick or cycle palettes itself.

Fixed - Circle drawing is more accurate: outlines no longer come out slightly flat, and filled circles are rounder. - Renaming a segment while effects are running no longer risks a crash on dual-core ESP32. - If the device runs out of memory at startup, it now creates a small default segment instead of showing "no segments" with most controls disabled. - Pac-Man is hardened against drawing outside the strip, and ESP8266 gets a smaller DDP send packet so streaming does not fail, plus about 2.5 KB of flash back by dropping unusable GIF code. - ESP32 chip revision is reported correctly again on the V5 platform.

Fixed (reported by users) - FW1906 strips no longer light the cool-white and warm-white channels on certain solid colors (#5812). - The effects list no longer loads incomplete or broken over a slow connection (#5813). - Waveshare ESP32-S3-RGB-Matrix HUB75 boards: boot failures (#5776) and swapped green and blue channels (#5815) both resolved. - Long-running strip flicker and strobe reports from the 0.15 line were closed out, including the LEDs-flashing-every-10-30-seconds thread (#4805), DRGB realtime strobing (#5512), and the effect jumping to "Copy Segment" (#5506). Also closed: white flash at full brightness before the boot preset loads (#5468), a permanently locked OTA on QuinLED Dig-Uno (#5158), and Gledopto Ethernet dropouts (#5431).

Watching - Adding a second LED output crashes on 17.0.0-dev; confirmed and marked major (#5770). - Two proposals are gauging community interest: PPP-over-serial as a network transport, turning the USB cable into a full network link (#5811), and a DDP compression extension for low-bandwidth links (#5810), the busiest thread of the month. - An RFC proposes rewriting the settings web UI to be schema-driven, generated from the code rather than hand-written HTML (#5792). - A WLED-MM backport is proposed upstream: switching DDP, E1.31 and Art-Net output to AsyncUDP for better streaming performance (#5816). - A BSSID typed with colons or dashes is silently parsed wrong, so access-point pinning never matches (#5797).

Auditability: 52 commits on main with author-date 2026-08-01..2026-08-31 (range aa98fe4 ... c472e41), via gh api repos/wled/WLED/commits?sha=main&since=2026-08-01T00:00:00Z&until=2026-09-01T00:00:00Z. Issues via search/issues for repo:wled/WLED+is:issue+created:2026-08-01..2026-08-31 (19 opened) and repo:wled/WLED+is:issue+closed:2026-08-01..2026-08-31 (14 closed); only user-facing ones surfaced. No versioned release published in August 2026 (repos/wled/WLED/releases), so no month split. Internal refactors (the netmindz global-state encapsulation series, ~15 commits), CI changes, docs and dependency bumps are omitted.

July 2026

The month main switched to the V5 platform: WLED's trunk moved from the ESP-IDF 4.4 / arduino-esp32 v2 build to ESP-IDF 5.3 / arduino-esp32 v3, and the long-running V5 branch became the development trunk (merged July 19). Maintainers warned publicly that main would be unstable for a while, and the web UI now shows a "development build" banner. v16.0.1 shipped July 7 from a release branch, so the month is not split.

New - Trunk builds move to ESP-IDF 5.3 / arduino-esp32 v3, opening the door to the newer chips (ESP32-C5, C6 and P4 build targets ride along). - ESP-NOW now uses WLED's own code instead of the QuickESPNow library — faster, and roughly 10 KB more free memory on ESP32 (1.5 KB on ESP8266). - New esp32_eth_V4 build for Ethernet boards; ESP32-C6 boards get 4 MB and 8 MB builds. - Nightly builds renamed, and the web UI warns when you're running a development build. - Audio-reactive now compiles on all the newer chips.

Fixed - ESP32-C3 and S3 no longer boot-loop on the new platform (device-ID and audio-reactive builds rescued). - Usermod settings: non-pin dropdowns no longer reserve GPIO pins, which was blocking pin choices elsewhere. - Several DMX-input crashes and a robustness fix in its configuration; a possible array overrun in the Improv response. - ESP8266 minimum build shrank by 1.5 KB; the unmaintained WLED_SAVE_RAM build option was removed.

Watching - The loudest thread of the month is #5746, asking the project to do unstable work on a dev branch rather than breaking main. - Ethernet users want the WiFi access point to switch off entirely once the wired link is up (#5762). - Open v16 field reports: Animated Staircase segments switching instead of fading (#5731), APA102 on GPIO19 misbehaving (#5728), HUB75 colour-order options hidden and mostly unimplemented (#5723), and a request for current-limited LED support in the brightness limiter (#5715).

Auditability: 40 first-parent commits on main with author-date 2026-07-01..2026-07-31 (56 including merged sub-commits). Issues via search/issues for repo:wled/WLED+is:issue+created:2026-07-01..2026-07-31 (20 opened) and closed:2026-07-01..2026-07-31 (15 closed); only user-facing ones surfaced. v16.0.1 (2026-07-07) is not an ancestor of main (GitHub compare reports main and v16.0.1 diverged), so no month split.

June 2026

Post-16.0 stabilisation month: no new version tag (v16.0.0 shipped 2026-05-03 off a release branch, so the month is not split), just a steady stream of bugfixes and small additions landing on main.

New - HUB75 matrix panels: added a "Seengreat" pinout, plus fixes for 4-scan and chained-panel setups. - Renamed the "CW" LED type to "CCT" for clarity when configuring CCT white strips. - V5-C6 boards are now covered by the V5 build.

Fixed - "Rainbow" and other color-wheel effects no longer mis-drive the white channel on RGBW strips. - Restored the pre-16.0 look of several effects that had changed appearance after the 16.0 upgrade (also fixes the DJ Light intensity regression). - HUB75: restored missing pixel trails on some 2D effects (Black Hole, Lissajous, Spaceships). - Fixed a crash when creating a 2D setup larger than the actual number of LEDs. - Fixed LED glitches on long strips with ESP32-C3. - Nightlight: brightness now applies correctly, including small transition steps, and no longer resets when set to max brightness. - Color no longer jumps when you change it mid-transition; gamma is now applied correctly during realtime/live-data override. - Improved boot behaviour for boot presets, and "Reset segments" now respects "Make a segment for each output". - Fixed a ledmap parser reading past the end of the map, an analog-button reading fix, and a pixel-buffer refresh after changing matrix dimensions. - Better brownout detection and extended error codes aligned with WLED-MM.

Watching - Discussion opened on switching from plain gamma to an sRGB transfer function for better low-brightness accuracy (#5707), and on improving the Nodes/Instances page (#5711) — no shipped outcome yet. - Several v16.0 field reports still open: multi-controller sync losing color (#5705), UDP sync failing in AP mode (#5709), and OTA-update trouble on some boards (#5682, #5702).

Auditability: 43 commits on main with author-date 2026-06-01..2026-06-30 (repos/wled/WLED/commits?sha=main, first-line view; a few older-dated cherry-picks appear in-range and were excluded as non-June). Issues via search/issues for repo:wled/WLED created:2026-06-01..2026-06-30 (18 opened) and closed:2026-06-01..2026-06-30 (25 closed); only user-facing ones surfaced. No versioned release published in June (v16.0.0 was 2026-05-03), so no month split.

May 2026

Summarised from 72 first-parent commits on main, 2026-05-01 … 2026-05-31. (Trunk after the v16.0.0 release on May 3; v16 is codenamed "Kagayaki".)

New / boards

  • HUB75: FM6124 driver for 4-scan panels and the 64×64 limit removed on PSRAM boards; new ESP32-S3-without-PSRAM build environments; option to build against the Espressif framework instead of Tasmota.

Fixed / hardened

  • Effects: restored palette wrap in color_wheel() (a regression since 0.15.x), Twinkle fixes, Dissolve "Complete" same-color-as-background fix, gravity audio-reactive top-LED fix.
  • Audio-reactive auto-suspends in realtime modes (but stays on with "use main segment only").
  • DDP and all realtime protocols: relaxed-but-safer header acceptance + bounds checks; Improv/UDP parsing hardened; /reset auth clarified.
  • Auto-migration for legacy sunrise/sunset config; animated-staircase inverted-PIR support.

April 2026

Summarised from 67 first-parent commits on main, 2026-04-01 … 2026-04-30. (v16.0.0-beta was tagged April 11.)

New / effects

  • Game of Life fix; FPS bump via a fast path in blendSegment; better packet queuing/pacing for custom-palette live preview.
  • PixelForge palette/tools list moved into the repo; fxdata serialized without ArduinoJSON (smaller/faster).

Fixed

  • Critical Candle-FX bug + Flow-FX integer issue; segment inputs no longer restrict trailing strips; iOS blending-style list filter; DDP flag-bit masking for compatibility; robustness rewinding file pointers before writes.
  • (Otherwise a heavy AI-contributor-guideline / docs month.)

March 2026

Summarised from 65 first-parent commits on main, 2026-03-01 … 2026-03-31. (v0.15.4 shipped March 14 from the 0_15 release branch; trunk version bumped to 17.0.0-dev.)

New / effects

  • Full FastLED replacement merged (#4615) — WLED's own color/math instead of the FastLED dependency.
  • Many new user_fx effects: Spinning Wheel, Color Clouds, Lava Lamp, Magma, Ants, Morse Code, Comet (fire particle system), a slow >4-hour transition FX, Tetris line-clear flash.
  • Scrolling-text FX gains custom fonts + international UTF-8; stencil blending mode; ESP32-C3 audio-reactive (DSP FFT + integer math); more macro/timer slots; longer max playlist duration.
  • OTA update page restyled (auto-sets download URL from info.repo); clearer UI tool icons.

Fixed

  • Segment-index misalignment; hostname/DNS cleanup; hue preservation in color fade; array-bounds on short WS payloads; DDP rejects unsupported/non-display packets.

February 2026

Summarised from 35 first-parent commits on main, 2026-02-01 … 2026-02-28.

New

  • Version scheme changed to Major.minor (dropped the leading "0."), heading toward v16; bumped to 16.0.0-alpha.
  • New Pin Info page (used/available pins overview); UI settings readability improvements.
  • Improved bus handling — free choice of bus driver in any order, better memory calculations; gamma lower-limit removed (enables inverse gamma correction, applied to segment brightness too).
  • Extended CCT blending (exclusive blend, color-jump fix); full WiFi scan with BSSID apply; new ESP32-S3 8MB QSPI build; experimental ESP32-C5/C6 in the node list.

Fixed

  • LED animations briefly pausing at bootup (ESP32); boot-up WiFi pause with extended scanning; removed dangerous mutex macros in the bus manager; Flow-FX flow at segment start/end.

January 2026

Summarised from 38 first-parent commits on main, 2026-01-01 … 2026-01-31.

New

  • New custom-palettes editor (#5010); WPA-Enterprise WiFi support; random per-LED colors via JSON API; option to save unmodified presets to autosave; PixelForge GIF image rotation.
  • Removed the MAX_LEDS_PER_BUS limit for virtual buses; new ESP32 node types; JSON validation + minify on file upload in the UI.

Fixed

  • Relay not turning on at boot; GPIO0 always grabbed by a button; gamma correction on a fresh install; Ethernet static-IP ignored; HUB75 improvements; config exceeding the LED limit.

December 2025

Summarised from 39 first-parent commits on main, 2025-12-01 … 2025-12-31. (v0.15.3 shipped December 4 from the 0_15 release branch.)

New / effects

  • PacMan effect and the new "WLEDPixelForge" image & scrolling-text interface (#4982); dynamic LED-type dropdown; improved 2D particle collisions; sequential UI-resource loading.
  • Usermod Temperature uses full 12-bit precision; "peek" shows gaps; removed legacy EEPROM support.

Fixed

  • FX checkmark sync; UI TypeError with a custom palette; rotary-encoder palette-count off-by-one; particle-collision binning; segment overflow.

November 2025

Summarised from 46 first-parent commits on main, 2025-11-01 … 2025-11-30. (v0.15.2-beta1 → v0.15.2 shipped Nov 9 / Nov 29 from the 0_15 release branch.)

New

  • New file editor (#4956) with ctrl+S, toasts, efficient ledmap reading, 0-byte-file handling.
  • DDP over WebSocket; improved 1D GIF support with blur option; variable button count up to 32; Dissolve "Complete" mode (always fades fully).
  • Aurora FX speedups; better PSRAM-MB usage reporting; bootloader offsets for C3/S3 + variable bootloader sizes per MCU; Adafruit board partitions.

Fixed

  • Stale UI after firmware updates; AP-not-showing (default channel tweaks); device-fingerprint crashes; millis()-rollover robustness in wait logic; OTA update for C3 from 0.15; ESP8266 low-heap and DMA fixes.

October 2025

Summarised from 9 first-parent commits on main, 2025-10-01 … 2025-10-31.

  • Quiet month on trunk. DDP over WebSocket groundwork (shared WS connection in common.js); Twinkle blank-area fix; low-brightness gradient "jumpyness" fix; bootloop-tracker safety check; GIF-player inactive-segment + copy-FX bugfixes.

September 2025

Summarised from 41 first-parent commits on main, 2025-09-01 … 2025-09-30.

New / effects

  • Shimmer FX added; "unrestricted" number of custom palettes; center-bin selection for 2D GEQ; Twinklecat reverse option; speed optimisations + restoreColorLossy fix.
  • Heap-memory and PSRAM handling improvements; HUB75 AC fixes.

Fixed

  • Tri Fade FX; custom-palette color picker; Colortwinkles; LED buffer-size calculation; UDP name-sync rework; crash debug output added.