A beginner friendly, internet connected mood-light-in-a-bottle that's easy to program using MicroPython or CircuitPython.
A cutting edge fusion of Raspberry Pi's powerful RP2350 chip, addressable LEDs and Pirate Glass(TM) technology - this kit contains everything you'll need to build a fully programmable RGB LED light (or as we like to call it around here, arrrrrrrrRGB). Because the 50 LEDs are addressable, you can control the colour and brightness of each one individually!
Here are some things you could do with it:
🌈 Set it to show different colours and effects appropriate for your season, event, mood or whim.
🍃 Add an air quality sensor like SCD41 for a visual notification of when CO2 levels are too high.
🌍 Connect to your favourite APIs and get it to show you different effects for different weather conditions, switch the light on at sunset or let you know when the International Space Station is overhead.
🐦 Use a service like IFTTT to trigger effects based on Twitter shenanigans, calendar entries or home automation events.
What's new? 👀 Wireless Plasma Kits made after February 2026 use Plasma 2350 W as the controller. This means you now get all the benefits of RP2350 (faster processor + more RAM), support for four wire APA102-type LEDs plus a USB-C connector for power and programming, yay!
Powered by Plasma 2350 W ⚡
Plasma 2350 W is a RP2350 based LED controller board that's equipped with screw terminals so you can plug in a colourful string of WS2812/Neopixel or APA102/Dotstar lights without soldering, fuss, or having to worry about connectors. There's also a selection of useful buttons , an onboard RGB LED and a Qw/ST (Qwiic/STEMMA QT) connector for hooking up sensors and other breakouts. Everything is powered through the USB-C connector, so it's easy to power from any handy USB socket (or a USB battery pack if you want to untether it from mains power).
We've preloaded the Plasma board with MicroPython and a selection of examples to make it simple to get started. Check out our Learn guide to find out how to put everything together!
Cubey Edition
Happy to be hexahedral? 🟦 Stoked to be six-sided? 🟪 Add a mysterious illuminated alien artifact to your Borg inspired boardroom, brutalist neon bunker or top secret tesseract storage facility with this comfortingly chunky glass cube.
Cubey kit contains:
- Plasma 2350 W
- Cube bottle with cork (120mm tall, approx)
- 5m of WS2812/Neopixel-compatible addressable LED wire (50 LEDs)
- USB-A to USB-C cable
- Velcro dots for attaching the board to the bottle
Starry Edition
Twinkle twinkle smol diodes, let's take a look at where you're stowed 🌟 This kit contains everything you need to make a stellar decorative light, perfect for adding some sparkly illumination (and a hint of hygge) to your festive window, sleigh or limitless black void.
Starry kit contains:
- Plasma 2350 W
- Star bottle with cork (195mm tall, approx)
- 5m of WS2812/Neopixel-compatible addressable LED wire (50 LEDs)
- USB-A to USB-C cable
- Velcro dots for attaching the board to the bottle
Skully Edition
More doom light than mood light! 💀 More fright light than night light! 🦇 Our Skully Edition kit is perfect for adding some ominous (or rainbow) ambiance to your tricked out crypt, tech lair or ghost pirate ship.
Skully kit contains:
- Plasma 2350 W
- Mini skull bottle with cork (140mm tall, approx)
- 5m of WS2812/Neopixel-compatible addressable LED wire (50 LEDs)
- USB-A to USB-C cable
- Velcro dots for attaching the board to the bottle
Bring Your Own Bottle
Got your own treasured grog bottle, sea glass or whale oil lamp that you want to convert into a mood light? Good news - we've also got a BYOB kit which includes everything but the bottle. If you don't have a suitable sea-through vessel handy, you could drape the LED wire along a shelf or decorate a very lucky plant.
Bottle selection tips! 🍾 RGB LEDs work best in clear glass bottles, coloured glass will obscure the LED colours. Thick or bobbly glass looks great with LEDs as it adds a bit of diffusion (a bottle full of clear marbles or glass pebbles would also work well).
BYOB kit contains:
- Plasma 2350 W
- 5m of WS2812/Neopixel-compatible addressable LED wire (50 LEDs)
- USB-A to USB-C cable
Software
You can program RP2350 boards in a bunch of different ways, but if you're a beginner we'd recommend using our batteries included MicroPython build for ease of getting started. We've pre-loaded the Plasma board with pirate-brand MicroPython and some fun examples to show you different things you can do, from an ominous night light that gets brighter the closer it gets to midnight to a good old fashioned flame effect to huddle round on cold nights.
- (Learn) Assembling your Wireless Plasma Kit
- (Learn) Getting Started with Raspberry Pi Pico
- Plasma MicroPython firmware and examples
Alternatively, you could install CircuitPython on your Plasma 2350 W! CircuitPython is an easy to use, well-established ecosystem with lots of example code and drivers for interfacing with different kinds of hardware.
If you're adapting examples from elsewhere and need to know the pins that Plasma Stick uses, it's GP15 for LED data, GP14 for LED clock (if you're using APA102s), GP20 for I2C SDA and GP21 for I2C SCL.
Connecting Breakouts
Presto has a Qw/ST (AKA Qwiic/STEMMA QT) connector, so you can connect up Qw/ST breakouts easily using a JST-SH to JST-SH cable.
Notes
- Click here if you have an older Wireless Plasma Kit and are looking to learn more about Plasma Stick 2040 W.
About RP2350
The RP2350 chip is the Double Quarter Pounder & Fries to the RP2040's Double Cheeseburger and can have one or more RISC-V burgers instead of either of the M33 ARMs, to stretch the metaphor.
In addition to the modern M33 ARM cores, there are sides of: more PIO capability, a variety of low power states for sipping electrons, a whole security system and some sprinklings of specialist digital video circuits to offload DVI/HDMI output.
You can expect a tasty boost in performance - our "real world" MicroPython tests are running up to 2x faster compared to RP2040, and floating point number crunching in C/C++ is up to 20x faster. The extra on-chip RAM will make a big difference when performing memory intensive operations (such as working with higher resolution displays) and even more can be added thanks to external PSRAM support.
RP2350 comes in two flavours - A (standard) and B (all the pins). The B chip has a stonking 48 usable GPIO pins, including 8 ADCs and 24 PWMs, and features on some of our new products.