Userspace WS281x Control on the Raspberry Pi 5 Inches Closer with New Python Library Release

Embedded software developer Philip Howard has announced a beta release of a Python library for handling WS281x "NeoPixel" addressable RGB LEDs on a Raspberry Pi — delivering support for the Raspberry Pi 5 and its newly-driven general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins.

"Another new test release of the rpi_ws281x Python bindings for Raspberry Pi 5," Howard writes on Mastodon of the new beta software. "Thanks to a herculean effort by Jeremy [Garff], and with a bit of kernel module/dtoverlay fiddling, you can now drive WS281x "NeoPixels" on the [Raspberry] Pi 5."

"Due to significant changes in the Raspberry Pi hardware, namely the RP1 chipset, a kernel module is now required," Garff explains of the complexities in getting the software running properly on a Raspberry Pi 5. "There has been significant demand for this feature. I wanted to get something out as soon as I could, so not all features (all channels, inverted signal, etc.) are working yet."

The rpi_ws281x driver allows Raspberry Pi single-board computers to drive WS281x-family addressable RGB LEDs from their GPIO pins — but the release of the Raspberry Pi 5 brought a complication in the form of the RP1, an in-house "southbridge" chip that takes over responsibility for the GPIO pins from the system-on-chip. It's an approach with benefits, but one which means projects interacting with the GPIO pins at a low level — like rpi_ws281x — need updating accordingly.

Garff has been working on getting rpi_ws281x itself up and running with the Raspberry Pi 5, releasing an initial test version last week; Howard's work brings that new library to Python. The new build is now available in the rpi-ws281x-python GitHub repository, alongside the source code under the permissive BSD two-clause license; the upstream library is available in a separate repository.

Main article image courtesy of Adafruit.