Introducing Hyperk: Official WiFi driver for HyperHDR

[awawa-dev]

Hey everyone,

I'm excited to present Hyperk — a brand new WiFi LED controller built specifically for the HyperHDR ecosystem, developed completely from scratch by the original author of HyperSerial/HyperSPI.

As most of you know, I’ve always considered wired control the most reliable solution, which is reflected in the entire family of my HyperSerial/HyperSPI projects. At the same time, I realize that in many real-world setups WiFi is the only practical choice.

After years of experience with ambient lighting systems, the existing WiFi solutions no longer met my standards. This new project builds upon my prior expertise, ensuring continuity and reliability. That’s why I decided to develop Hyperk completely from scratch, guided by my own priorities.

Key goals behind Hyperk:

• Built from zero — with strictly defined assumptions based on years of real-world experience.
• Minimalist and focused — no million features, no bloat with unnecessary extras. It's not a "jack-of-all-trades" and doesn't carry the weight of redundant bells and whistles.
• Full advanced white channel calibration support — exactly the same as in my HyperSerial/HyperSPI projects for RGBW LEDs, which was missing elsewhere.
• Support for Pico (W) RP2040/RP2350 boards — it would be a waste not to utilize the power of their PIO coprocessors for ultra-stable LED driving.
• Designed for fast integration — built from day one to quickly support new, exotic, and cheap non-ESP platforms (as long as hardware and SDK allow) without waiting years for implementation.
• Extremely low resource usage — optimized to work great even on legacy hardware like the ESP8266.
• Accountability and Official Support — users often use exotic or experimental third-party firmwares and then report issues as if they were HyperHDR bugs. To solve this, Hyperk will now receive official, priority support as the recommended WiFi driver for HyperHDR. This allows me to take full responsibility for the performance and stability of the entire stack.
• Basic mDNS + API compatibility — providing seamless integration with Home Assistant using established protocols, ensuring a zero-config experience.
• Strict respect for hardware limitations — we rigorously use only GPIOs with proper hardware support for the intended function. We don't make compromises or use unreliable "soft" fallbacks just to create an illusion of supporting more pins.

Hyperk is made for users who want a clean, efficient, and truly reliable WiFi solution that fits perfectly into the HyperHDR philosophy.

Check it out here: https://github.com/awawa-dev/Hyperk
Flash it easily using the browser-based installer: https://hyperk.hyperhdr.org

We’d love to hear your feedback and see your setups!

[satgit62]

Thank you very much for the new Hyperk LED controller! As I mentioned in my first impressions post at #3, it was to be expected that you would move towards a new innovation optimised for HyperHDR. Thank you very much for that. Since everything is currently working as expected, I will continue to follow the new implementations and improvements.

[satgit62]

@awawa-dev
Hello,
Currently, the HyperHDR LED controller 'wled' must be selected for your 'Hyperk'. This causes confusion for some users.

Do you intend to create a separate 'Hyperk' for the LED controller in 'HyperHDR' instead?

[awawa-dev]

Yes, I covered that upcoming feature on the main Hyperk page.

[satgit62]

@awawa-dev Hello,
Thank you for implementing support for OTA firmware upgrades.
This is very convenient, as you are no longer tied to a PC with the necessary drivers and can perform OTA firmware upgrades directly in the future.

I myself had the problem that under Windows 11 (25H2) some boards ESPs with CH340/341 Serial could not be flashed. Only after downgrading the CH340/341 driver (DriverVer = 01/30/2019, 3.5.2019.1) was it possible to flash without any problems.

Otherwise, Hyperk works stably and reliably, not only under HyperHDR, but also under all conceivable Ambilight platforms that I have tested, for example EnigmaLight under the Enigma² set-top box VU+ 4K and compatible devices. Hyperk was recognized and configured without any problems under the WLED-UDP device.

[satgit62]

Hello @awawa-dev,
Thank you for implementing the LAN firmware for the ESP32-ETH01 and compatible LED controllers.
Since WLED was already installed on my homemade ESP32-ETH01, I used WLED's OTA update option and successfully performed the update "OTA_Hyperk_0.0.2-alpha. 3_esp32-eth01.bin" update.

Otherwise, a TTL-to-USB adapter is required for the homemade ESP32-ETH01 LED controller in order to flash the software.

[awawa-dev]

Once again, huge thanks for testing :) In that case, it’s going into the release. My USB-to-TTL adapter is a bit different, so in its case you have to be careful to select 3.3 V logic instead of 5 V.

[satgit62]

USB-to-TTL adapter

Thanks for the tip! In the meantime, I've bought a newer USB-to-TTL adapter that's almost identical to yours, with a jumper that allows you to select the voltage.
When I flashed the ESP32 WTH01 with WLED, I only had the old TTL adapter and it only worked with 5 volts. I'll take this opportunity to update my image with the new adapter.

[satgit62]

@awawa-dev,

The OTA update was successful! :)

[awawa-dev]

Happy to hear that 😃 My WT-ETH01 updated fine over OTA too. I added support for this board to hyperk.hyperhdr.org, so you can now use that site to flash it if you're using a USB-to-TTL adapter.

[santievil]

Tested on a GLEDOPTO LT-GL-C-015WL-D. It works perfectly (ESP32).
Tomorrow I have to tidy up all the wiring and everything else... I’m not taking anything apart again, so if I fall asleep at work tomorrow, I’m holding you guys responsible 😃.
If you need any specific testing, you know where to find me.

[srodl]

Did you have an issue getting the lights on after flashing? I'm struggling to see how to trigger a GPIO12 relay on my Domraem ESP32 controller.

[satgit62]

how to trigger a GPIO12 relay on my Domraem ESP32 controlle

I don't quite understand your problem.
If you have this DomRaem ESP32 controller, you can only use the GPIOs that are available to the device (IO2, IO16, IO17, and IO18).

In the Hypek settings, you must assign a GPIO to the data output you used in Domraem.
If you used the DATA output IO2 for the LEDs, you must set GPIO2 in Hyperk.

[srodl]

The lights are connected to GPIO2, but WLED had a setting to control a relay to control power to the lights. I can't see this setting in Hyperk, and was assuming this was why my lights weren't coming on.

[satgit62]

The lights are connected to GPIO2, but WLED had a setting to control a relay to control power to the lights. I can't see this setting in Hyperk, and was assuming this was why my lights weren't coming on.

Okay, now I understand what this is about.
Yes, Hyperk doesn't currently offer that kind of control option.
You'll have to wait and see if @awawa-dev implements it in the future.

[awawa-dev]

@srodl It's possible in future releases, but the current priority is getting a stable build out - we can't stay in alpha/beta indefinitely. Also, I don't own any hardware with an integrated relay. While I could probably hack something together with a multi-meter, I’m not really looking to build a custom test rig just to verify this myself at the moment.

[TechsavvyCNC]

Do you still need a usb screeen grabber with this?

[awawa-dev]

This is a wireless LED controller – it still needs to be controlled by a system like HA or HyperHDR

[jollycash]

Just wanted to say THANK YOU!
I used WLED on a regular ESP32 dev module and always felt like it kept lagging. Now I installed HyperK on the same module and it's just so snappy!

In the upcoming weeks, I will try switching to an ESP32-C6 module to make use of Wifi6 (and the smaller module size), but the current setup already works like a charm.

[awawa-dev]

Thank you so much for giving Hyperk a chance, and I'm thrilled to hear that you're happy with it!

Personally, I see the ESP32-C6 as the first truly successful board with low price tag, PARLIO and Wi-Fi 6 worth considering for HyperHDR since the brilliant original ESP32. The subsequent iterations unfortunately stripped away a lot of what made the original great, so I think you'll be very satisfied with this choice.

Regarding performance, not sure about older releases but we have indeed received reports that the latest WLED 0.16 might be experiencing some latency and lag issues in certain setups. It looks like this has already been reported to their team.

[NatyaSadella]

Thank you so much for Hyperk Awawa. I was honestly getting pretty sick of WLED, the Infinite Color Engine that you can enable in the LED hardware tab was flickering like crazy for me. The frame rates between the LEDs and smoothing were completely out of sync.

I tried HyperSerialESP32 and HyperSPI, but I had no luck with a regular ESP32 and the pre-built ABC! WLED controller, no light was getting to the LEDs at all.

Then I flashed Hyperk onto the ABC controller and was finally able to enable ICE. I'm now getting stable and synchronized 120fps on the LEDs, which results in a massive improvement when using the PS5 Pro in 120Hz mode. Every number I set for fps in Piccap is passed on to the LEDs perfectly. Hats off, I never would've thought you could get this much performance out of a Wi-Fi solution. My Ambilight has never felt better, but I went ahead and ordered the RP2040 Scorpio anyway so I can try out HyperSPI.

I do have one feature request for Hyperk, though: the ability to restart it via the UI, either directly from within HyperHDR or simply by providing the function via JSON so I can integrate it into Home Assistant.

[awawa-dev]

Hi
Thank you. The reboot feature (GUI & API) has been added in https://github.com/awawa-dev/Hyperk/releases/tag/0.0.5-beta.2 release. Who knows? Maybe someday Hyperk will receive HyperSPI support too :-)