The official firmware lets you change the LEDs — but the ways to do it are clunky, it forgets everything the moment power drops, and there isn't a single animation. Zima Bay Control replaces the app on the chip with something that feels finished.
Everything stock does —
without the workarounds.
- LEDs are controllable — but the process is clunky and technical
- Browser permission prompts & mixed-content warnings with workarounds
- LED state forgotten on every power cycle
- No animations at all
- 3 control modes
- Needs a browser tab open to keep anything running
- Control lives in pages meant for debugging
- No path to new features without redoing the whole flash dance
- Any device, any browser — dashboard served straight from the device at zimacube.local or 172.16.1.1
- None. Same-origin, plain HTTP, just works
- Colours and modes remembered across reboots
- 47 flow effects running natively on the chip
- 4 control modes + per-LED custom editor
- Effects run forever, tab can close
- A dashboard designed for the strip, served by the strip
- Wireless OTA updates from the dashboard's own tab
Everything the stock board
should have shipped with.
Full colour control
A hue wheel, 40+ preset colours and 25 multi-LED patterns, plus a per-LED editor for all 13 diodes — paint the strip one diode at a time. Brightness and breathing mode ride along on every screen.
Persistent memory
Everything survives a power cut. Colour, mode, effect, brightness — the board writes it all to non-volatile memory the moment you change it. Unplug the ZimaCube for a week and it boots back exactly as you left it.
47 native flow effects
Rainbow chases, fire, comets, heartbeat and more — rendered on the ESP32 itself, at full frame rate, with speed and direction dials. Close the browser tab; the show goes on without you.
On-device dashboard
The board serves its own dashboard at zimacube.local or 172.16.1.1 — the page you control the LEDs with lives on the same chip as the LEDs. No external site, no apps, no permission prompts. Any browser on the network gets the same interface.
Wireless OTA updates
The first flash needs a cable. Every update after that is over WiFi, from the dashboard's own update tab — pick the file, press flash, done in seconds. You'll never dig behind the ZimaCube again.
Private by design
No accounts, no telemetry, no ads. The chip has no route out of your home network — it can't phone home even if it wanted to. Your lighting habits stay yours.
What actually happens when you flash.
No magic, and nothing irreversible — it's one file on a well-understood chip.
The 7th Bay is a tiny computer
An ESP32-C3 driving 13 WS2812B LEDs. It runs its own firmware, hosts its own WiFi network, and serves its own web page. The ZimaCube just gives it power.
Stock firmware: capable, clunky
Three control modes — each reached through a workaround. State is forgotten on every power cycle, there isn't a single animation, and the control pages feel like debugging tools. It works. It just never feels finished.
Vantic swaps one file
The flasher replaces only the app image. The bootloader and partition layout are identical to stock, so your settings and the WiFi name survive — and going back is the same process in reverse.
The dashboard comes from the device
Join the ZimaCube WiFi, open zimacube.local or 172.16.1.1 — that's the whole install. Same-origin, plain HTTP, no cloud and no accounts in sight. Effects keep running with every browser tab closed.
Private by design.
The chip has no internet route — it can't phone home even if it wanted to. No accounts, no telemetry, no ads, nothing leaves your network. The dashboard talks to the LEDs, and that's the whole conversation.
The firmware is a community project — you can watch exactly what it does on the device's own pages.
Convinced?
Flashing takes about five minutes over USB-C — or fifteen seconds over WiFi if your chip already boots something. Both routes are the same one-click page.