The WS2812 has been around for a decade and remains highly popular, alongside its numerous clones. Despite the WS2812 being in existence for a significant amount of time, the protocol and fundamental features of the device have only undergone minimal changes.
What about bidirectional communication to autodetect LEDs and monitor their health? Allowing to send configuration data to the LEDs to fine tune their behavior? Or even supporting more complex topologies beyond serial strings? Enter “Gen2 ARGB”.
Tim (cpldcpu on GitHub) obtained some examples in PC lighting from Coolermaster and Arctic, tore them down and did a thorough analysis.
The company promoting Gen2 ARGB the most seems to be Coolermaster. Their technology promotion page is here. They sell controllers for Gen2 ARGB LED strings and accessories, such as RGB lit coolers and light strips that can be attached to the controllers.
In case you looked at the links above and were confused about how ARGB2 Gen2 is different from the WS2812 – well, I was too.
Since I was not able to locate any discrete Gen2 ARGB LEDs, let alone find data-sheets. I purchased a LED controller (Coolermaster A1) and a fan with Gen2 ARGB LEDs (Artic P12 PWM PST-ARGB).
Check out the differences in NeoPixel/WS2812 LEDs with Gen2 in the GitHub repo here.
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