Brightmond by Imagin3Studio

Welcome 👗✨

This dress dances to music. A tiny built-in mic listens and the sewn-in lights react — no phone or internet needed for a show. Use the tabs above: Buttons, Effects, Settings (every knob), Save & Presets, Create, and Help if anything goes wrong.

The 30-second version

Plug the dress into the power bank, switch it on. Wait ~3 s — it starts dancing.
One tap on the sleeve button = next look. Tap-then-hold ✨ = Flair (4-sec sparkle — use on the applause).
Unplug it when not in use (it sips power; wires can warm if left running).
Lights stuck ON in a loud room? → Help tab: lower the Gain or dampen the mic. Not AGC.
Stuck or scared? Big green 💬 Support button — message straight away.

Power & heat

Runs from a USB power bank — charge it fully before a show, carry a spare.
Unplug between uses — it draws a little current even when quiet, and the wires can get gently warm on long runs. Powering off keeps it cool. (It's current-limited in software — you can't overdraw it.)
On the power bank it runs at full brightness. On a laptop it runs dimmer on purpose (a safety limit).

The two buttons

🟢 Sleeve button = your control (see the Buttons tab). ⚪ BOOT button (on the circuit board) = the tech's; quick taps do nothing, leave it alone.

Tuning from a phone

Hold the sleeve button ~1 s → join Wi-Fi “Brightmond” → the page opens. Every control has a description under it. Tabs there: General (pick a look), Global (overall feel — see Settings), Per-Mode (the look's own knobs), Buttons (remap — see Buttons), Create (Create), Presets (Save & Presets). That Wi-Fi has no internet — that's normal; stay connected.

The sleeve button

Do this	What happens
One quick tap	Next look (steps the set list)
Two quick taps	Blackout — two again to bring it back
Three quick taps	Full-on steady bright — three again to return
Four quick taps	Jump to your next saved look (Punchy, Old…)
Tap, then hold ✨	FLAIR — 4-sec Sparkle burst, then back. Use on the applause.
Hold ~1 s	Opens the Wi-Fi tuning page
Hold & keep holding	Strobe while held; let go to stop

Why Flair is a button, not automatic: to one mic, a crowd clapping sounds almost identical to your music — auto-detection guesses wrong. A button on your cue is 100% reliable.

Re-map a gesture (Buttons tab in the app)

Every gesture above can be changed. On the app's Buttons tab, pick a gesture and choose what it does from the menu:

An action — blackout, full-on, strobe, next/previous look, jump to a saved preset, tap-tempo, Flair, and more.
Jump to a specific effect — make a gesture instantly switch to any of the 46 looks (see Effects).
Your own custom action — anything you built on the Create tab (see Create) shows up here by name.

Press Save to keep it. Lost? One tap = next look, two taps = blackout always get you to a known place.

All 46 effects

Pick the live look on the app's General tab; fine-tune it on Per-Mode (those knobs are in Settings). The set list's looks are tuned versions of these.

🎵 React to the music

VU (full spectrum) — reacts to the whole song (the all-rounder).

Bass / beat pulse — punches on the low end / kick.

Treble sparkle — lights up on highs & cymbals.

Mid / vocal follow — tracks the mids / voice.

Onset flash — flashes on note hits.

Peak hold — jumps up, eases down.

Band gate — only fires in a chosen frequency band.

Spectral tilt — leans bright/dark with the tone.

Dynamic VU (compressed) — VU with built-in auto-level.

Beat-gated strobe — strobes only on beats.

Energy swell — slow rise & fall with the energy.

Inverse VU — bright on quiet, dark on loud.

Sidechain pump — “ducks” on the beat (that pumping feel).

Spectral flux — reacts to how fast the sound changes.

Transient burst — sharp pops on hits.

Anticipation riser — builds before a drop.

Beat-sync — locks to the tempo and pulses.

Drop flash — dark build, then a flash on the drop.

🥁 Keep a tempo (pulse even in a quiet moment)

Metronome · Beat divisions · Half / double time · Bar swell · Euclidean rhythm · Tap-tempo strobe · Swing pulse · Polyrhythm · Accel strobe

🌙 Standalone looks (no music needed)

Ambient breathing · Noisemove · Solid · Breathing · Pulse · Strobe · Riser (sawtooth) · Triangle fade · Fade in / out · Candle flicker · Random twinkle · Sparkle / glitter (the Flair look) · Lightning · Heartbeat · Morse blink · Fire · LFO bank · Random walk · Comet

Want a gesture to jump straight to one of these? Map it on the Buttons tab. Want to combine/tweak them into your own? See Create.

Every setting — what it does, more vs. less

Reaction & level (Global tab)

Setting	Does	↑ More	↓ Less
Gain	How hard it reacts to sound — the main dial.	Brighter, more reactive. Too high in a loud room = pinned on, no dynamics.	Calmer; needs louder/closer sound. Lower it for a loud venue.
Squelch	Ignores quiet background noise (before AGC).	Ignores more — quiet goes dark, less flicker. Too high gates out soft music.	Reacts to quieter sound — more sensitive, can flicker to noise.
Master brightness	Overall light level / ceiling.	Brighter peaks — more current/heat.	Dimmer; tames a too-bright/warm dress. 0 = off.
Response curve	Shape of the reaction.	Gamma = most contrast/punch, but a faint idle glow.	Linear = even, least glow. Sqrt = between.

AGC (Auto-Gain) — a LAST RESORT. It turns the dress flat/off. It tries to auto-level any volume, but in testing it over-compresses and dims the whole dress toward OFF (everything flat, no drama). The show looks all run AGC OFF. For “too loud,” lower the Gain (or dampen the mic — see Help), not AGC. The three AGC fine-knobs only matter when it's on.

Movement / envelope

Setting	Does	↑ More	↓ Less
Attack (rise)	How fast it brightens on a hit.	Slower — smoother, laggier.	Snappier — instant pop.
Decay (fall)	How fast it fades after a hit.	Slow, smeared, smooth.	Snappy off — crisp, punchier.
Min-brightness	Lowest the look ever dims to.	A floor glow — never fully dark.	0 = fully dark on quiet — max drama.

Extras / modifiers (all OFF by default)

Toggle	What it does
Idle glow	A faint glow when there's no sound. level 0–100%
Audio gate	Any effect goes fully dark the moment there's no sound.
Auto-rotate	Cycles to the next effect on a timer. 5–120 s
Build strobe	Strobes during a build-up. 1–20 Hz
Drop blast	On a drop: a dark beat then a full blast.
Master smoothing	Smooths the output. 0–0.99 Higher = smoother/laggier.
Gamma overlay	Extra contrast. 1.0–3.0 Higher = punchier (more glow).
Section adapt	Chorus brighter, verse dimmer (auto).
Drop flash	A bright flash on a detected drop, any look.

Music gate & Clap mode (OFF — leave off)

Honest note: a single mic can't reliably tell applause from beat-less music in a real room. Leave them off and use the Flair button. (Gate: Fallback “Off (dark)”, Sensitivity 0–100, Hold 0.3–5 s. Clap: Sparkle flare, Count 2–8, Window 0.5–5 s.)

Saving, presets & making a default

Saving a change

Whenever you tweak something in the app, press Save on that tab. It sticks — even after the dress is powered off.

The set list (one-tap looks)

One tap on the sleeve steps through the set: Baseline → Für Therese → Rubato — all the big dramatic look, tuned to the music. Two more are a four-tap away: Punchy (crisp on/off with the beat) and Old (the gentler classic).

Save your own look

Dial it in: pick an effect (General), tune it (Per-Mode / Global — see Settings).
Go to the Presets tab → Save the current look into a slot and give it a name.
It now appears in the list and is reachable by the four-tap on the sleeve.

Make a look the default (what it boots into)

The dress boots into the opener (“Baseline”, slot 0). To change the default:

Easiest: on the Presets tab, Load the look you want — the dress remembers it and boots into it next time.
To replace the opener itself: save your look over the “Baseline” slot — then one-tap always starts there.

Your saved looks survive power-offs and app-only updates. A full factory reset (tech only) wipes them back to the default set.

Create your own effects & actions

On the app's Create tab you can build your own — they then show up by name in the Effects list and the Buttons menus, just like the built-ins.

Build an effect

Builder — choose a source (bass / mids / treble / beat / a slow wave…), a shape (how it rises & falls), min/max brightness, and a few extras. Preview live, then Save as a name.
Layer two — blend any two effects together (max / add / mix).
Save tweaked — take a built-in you've fine-tuned and save it as its own named look.

Build a button action

Macro — chain several actions in order (e.g. jump to a look → set brightness → strobe).
Parametric — one exact setting (set brightness = X, jump to preset N, jump to effect M).
Run effect — a gesture that switches straight to one of your created effects.

Made something great? Map it to a gesture on the Buttons tab, or save the whole look as a preset (Save & Presets).

Problems & fixes

🔴 Lights stuck ON / not reacting — the room is too loud

Software fix (first): on the Global tab, lower the Gain until they move with the music again. Do NOT turn on AGC — it flattens the reaction toward off.

Hardware fixes (great for loud venues): the mic is just hearing too much — physically muffle it:

Put a small piece of tape / esparadrapo over the mic hole (one layer at a time — it softens the sound).
Tuck the mic inside the dress / under a layer of fabric.
Slip it under a bra strap or a seam so the fabric dampens it.
Move the dress further from the speakers / angle the mic away from them.

Then nudge the Gain back up if it got too shy. A muffled mic + sensible gain is the trick for big rooms.

It barely reacts / stays dim

Not hearing enough. Raise the Gain, get closer to the speakers, lower the Squelch, and make sure nothing's covering the mic (if you taped it for a loud room, peel a layer).

Flickers/twitches when it's quiet

Raise the Squelch (ignores more noise) and set Min-brightness 0 so quiet = fully dark.

Never goes fully dark — a faint glow remains

The gamma curve lifting the mic's noise floor. Min-brightness 0, Response curve → Linear, Gain down, or unplug between uses. It blazes the instant music plays.

I turned on AGC and it went flat / nearly off

Expected — that's why AGC is a last resort. Turn it back OFF and use Gain (and mic-dampening for loud rooms).

It reacts to talking/clapping, not just music

It hears all sound. Raise the Squelch for chatter. For the applause sparkle use the Flair button (deliberate & reliable).

Lag between the music and the lights

Shorten the Attack (rise) and Decay (fall); turn Master smoothing OFF.

Too smooth / too jittery

Too smooth: shorten Decay & Attack. Too jittery: lengthen them, or turn on Master smoothing.

Not punchy enough

Response curve = Gamma (or Gamma overlay), Min-brightness 0, shorten Decay. Or four-tap to Punchy.

Too bright / blinding

Lower Master brightness. (Two taps = instant blackout.)

The Flair (tap-then-hold) isn't firing

A clean tap immediately followed by a hold. Check/remap it on the Buttons tab.

A button does the wrong thing

Someone remapped it — open the Buttons tab to restore it. One tap = next look, two = blackout always recover.

Nothing lights up

Power bank on & charged? Re-seat the cable, wait ~3 s. Dim? It's on a laptop — use the power bank.

Froze / acting weird

Power off and on at the power bank — saved looks stay. Fixes almost everything.

Battery died mid-show

Swap to a charged power bank — it boots right back with all looks & settings.

Wires/board feel warm

Normal on long runs. Lower Master brightness and unplug when not in use. It can't overdraw (current-limited).

Can't open the Wi-Fi page

Hold the sleeve ~1 s, join “Brightmond”. If it doesn't pop up, open a browser to 192.168.4.1. No internet on it = normal.

Part of the lights is out

Likely a wire in the costume — try a power-cycle, then hand it to the tech.

Start completely fresh

A tech can factory-reset from the page — wipes tweaks, re-bakes the default set list.

Something else / I'm panicking

Breathe — no setting can break it. Power-cycle, then hit 💬 Support.

Hardware — pinout & wiring

For the tech. The brains is an ESP32; it listens with an INMP441 I²S mic and switches the fairy-light string with a PN2222 transistor driven by PWM on GPIO13.

⚠️ Cable colours are NOT listed on purpose — the wiring was re-done with different colours, so go by the pin labels below, never by colour. Confirm with a meter if unsure.

Pinout

Signal	ESP32 pin	Notes
INMP441 SD	GPIO32	serial data (audio in)
INMP441 WS	GPIO15	word select / LRCL
INMP441 SCK	GPIO14	bit clock (BCLK)
INMP441 VDD	3V3	mic power
INMP441 GND	GND	ground
INMP441 L/R	GND	tie to GND = left channel
LED string PWM	GPIO13	→ 1 kΩ → PN2222 base. Non-inverted (duty = brightness)
LED string (−)	PN2222 collector	emitter → GND (low-side switch)
LED string (+)	VIN (5 V)	from the power bank via USB
Sleeve button	GPIO27	the performer control → to GND (internal pull-up)
BOOT button	GPIO0	onboard; Wi-Fi / flashing (tech only)

Wiring diagram

        INMP441 mic                 ESP32
      ┌─────────────┐        ┌──────────────────────┐
      │  SD   ──────┼────────┤ GPIO32               │
      │  WS   ──────┼────────┤ GPIO15               │
      │  SCK  ──────┼────────┤ GPIO14               │
      │  VDD  ──────┼────────┤ 3V3                  │
      │  GND  ──────┼────────┤ GND                  │
      │  L/R  ──────┼────────┤ GND  (= left chan)   │
      └─────────────┘        │                      │
                             │ GPIO13 ──[1 kΩ]──┐    │
   Sleeve button            │                  │    │
      ●──────────────────────┤ GPIO27           │    │
      │                      │                  │    │
     GND                     │ USB-C 5V ─► VIN   │    │
                             └──────────────────┼────┘
                                                │ base
                                            ┌───┴───┐
                                            │PN2222 │  (low-side
   LED string(+) ───► VIN (5 V)             │  NPN  │   switch)
   LED string(−) ───► collector ────────────┤C      │
                                            │      E├──► GND
                                            └───────┘

   GPIO13 PWM duty 0–255 → brightness (non-inverted).
   Boots GPIO13 LOW = off.

The LED switch (how brightness works)

GPIO13 outputs a PWM signal → 1 kΩ resistor → PN2222 base. The PN2222 is a low-side switch: collector to the LED string's (−), emitter to GND.
Non-inverted: higher duty = brighter. The string's (+) sits on VIN (5 V).
PWM runs at ~19.5 kHz, 8-bit (duty 0–255) — above flicker range.

Power path & safety

  USB power bank ─► ESP32 USB-C ─► onboard 5V→VIN (~500 mA) ─► VIN
     VIN ─► LED(+) ─► string ─► LED(−) ─► PN2222 C ─► E ─► GND

LED current flows through the ESP32's 5 V→VIN path (~500 mA budget). The firmware enforces it: boots GPIO13 LOW, hard-clamps duty to DUTY_MAX (230), slew-limits every change (no inrush “slams”), and caps to a dim duty over USB (full brightness only on the power bank). Treat 500 mA as the ceiling. Don't bypass these limits.

Two buttons recap → Buttons tab · heat & power for the dancer → Start tab.