β οΈ Photosensitivity Warning Patternflow displays rapidly changing light patterns that may trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised. If you experience any discomfort, stop use immediately.
Turning four physical knobs reshapes patterns from creative coding on an LED matrix in real time. The light is no longer a visual effect to be watched but a multisensory experience connected directly to the motion of the hand.
Audiences do not stop at appreciating a finished piece. Through the publicly released hardware files, firmware, 3D models, web preview, and AI prompts, anyone can build their own Patternflow, generate their own patterns, test them in the browser, and upload them to the device.
Patternflow returns to Nam June Paik's Participation TV in the technological conditions of the present.
Where Participation TV showed that the audience could intervene in an electronic image, Patternflow proposes the step that comes after participation. The audience can move from operating the work to making, modifying, and sharing it as creators.
It is a living system in which a physical experience extends outward into open-source making and community creation.
Build it from the files, or wait for the kit.
π Ready to build? Follow the Current Full Build Guide (docs/BUILD.md) to assemble your own Patternflow from scratch! You can also explore the modular Assembly Map (docs/assembly/README.md) for alternative enclosure and electronics paths.
v2.0.0 is live. Cold-boot fix, runtime pattern switching, browser flasher, Live Editor, journal, build map, and AI-assisted custom patterns.
Patternflow ships with a prompt template designed for AI coding assistants (Claude, ChatGPT, etc.). To make a new pattern:
- Go to the Live Editor in the Pattern section on patternflow.work and click Copy creation prompt.
- Paste it into your AI assistant (Claude, ChatGPT, etc.) along with a description of the look you want.
- Copy the generated JavaScript code, paste it into the Live Editor, and turn the virtual knobs in the web preview to test the pattern.
- Once you are happy with the visuals, click Copy C++ prompt in the editor and send it to your AI assistant.
- Save the C++ output as a new
pattern_*.hfile in thefirmware/patternflow/folder. - Register the namespace in
pattern_registry.h. - Open
firmware/patternflow/patternflow.inoin Arduino IDE and upload your custom build.
No GLSL or rendering pipeline knowledge needed. The template handles the encoder mapping, brightness curve, and HUB75 buffer interface; you describe the visuals.
Custom patterns require a local Arduino IDE compile/upload step for now.
PatternFlow OS v2.0.0 ships with two base patterns:
- Origin β concentric sine waves sampled by an emergent grid
- Wave Saw β rotated sawtooth waves with fractal noise distortion
Long-press encoder 4 to switch between patterns on the device β all bundled in a single firmware image, no reflashing needed.
Ongoing pattern studies are posted on Instagram. Every pattern shown there is mirrored on the Discord patterns channel with full JavaScript source, hardware-tested C++ header, and the design notes behind it β join Discord to grab a pattern from any post you liked.
Patternflow can react to browser audio over Wi-Fi. The recommended workflow is the experimental Chrome/Edge extension in tools/patternflow-audio-extension: it captures the current tab's audio, analyzes four FFT bands, and sends lightweight WebSocket knob values to the device. The firmware converts those values into virtual encoder motion, so every encoder-driven pattern can respond without adding audio code to each pattern.
The device still serves a built-in page at http://patternflow.local/ when Wi-Fi is configured. Keep it around for file playback, microphone input, and local experiments; browser tab/system audio capture is more reliable through the extension because normal http://patternflow.local pages are limited by browser capture permissions.
Everything about Patternflow began with Origin.
Two posts on r/arduino brought Patternflow to 150K combined views and 3.5K upvotes.
Hundreds of comments asked when it would be available, where to find the files, and how to build their own. The community was not asking for a product. They were asking for the files.
So Patternflow was opened β schematics, firmware, case, build guide, all of it in this repository. Hardware designs under CC-BY-SA 4.0; firmware and web code under MIT.
For the full story β failed prints, broken potentiometers, two weeks of debugging a strapping pin, the first PCB β see the 30-day journal.
- patternflow.work β browser flasher, Live Editor, journal, build map
- Releases β stable bundles
- Discord β questions, builds, custom patterns
- Audio Extension β experimental Chrome/Edge tab-audio controller
Patternflow is built around a standalone ESP32-S3 driving a HUB75 RGB LED matrix at low resolution β each pixel reads as a discrete point of light, with its own brightness and color. Four rotary encoders feed firmware written in Arduino-compatible C++ around a modular pattern architecture: each pattern is a self-contained module with its own setup, update, and draw routines, while the shared framework handles input, LED rendering, mode transitions, and color calibration. The PCB was designed by the artist; the enclosure is 3D-printed by default, with stainless steel, transparent acrylic, and laser-cut variations in progress.
firmware/β Arduino code for ESP32-S3, plus the custom pattern templatehardware/β enclosure files and electronics source files (case, PCB, Gerbers, schematic PDF)web/β Next.js site (landing, browser flasher, Live Editor, journal)docs/β build paths, build guide, media, license summarytools/β desktop-side helpers, including the experimental audio-react browser extension
If you already built a v1 unit, it still works as-is. v2.0.0's only PCB-side change is a 10kΞ© pullup on GPIO0 that resolves the v1 cold-boot issue (pressing RESET on power-up was the v1 workaround). If your v1 boots reliably β especially likely with a genuine Espressif module β you don't need to change anything. To bodge the fix onto a v1 board, see Issue #16.
Firmware v2 is backward compatible with v1 hardware. Flash freely.
Guidelines for contributing to the repository are currently under preparation. In the meantime, please refer to the CONTRIBUTING.md file for more information.
- Firmware & web β MIT (LICENSE-MIT)
- Hardware & designs β CC-BY-SA 4.0 (LICENSE-CC-BY-SA)
"Patternflow" is a trademark of SeungHun Lee.
The Patternflow series: LED Synthesizer (2026) Β· Origin (2026)
