The Difference Between Analog and Digital Led Strips

Firstly, we go through LED strips, to make sure, we fully understand these terms.

Analog LED strips:

· all diodes are lit in one color in the LED strip

· can be controlled by DMX

· cut segment is 3 or 6 LEDs

· easy to install

· home decorations, TV studios, outdoors

Digital LED strips:

· you can control each LED diode separately, creating various colors in one LED strip

· can be controlled by video software, live video stream, Art-Net, SD-card

· cut segment is 1 LED

· more complicated to install

· club interiors, TV shows, stage rental

Analog LED Strips

Color change

Analog strips allow you to have one color for the whole LED strip at a time. You can change the color anytime you want for the whole strip, but can't change it for a section of diodes.

Control system

Analog LED strips can be controlled by DMX. DMX is a signal used to control LED strips through the DMX unit. A DMX unit receives the DMX signal from a DMX console – where you can decide which color you want to pick and what luminous intensity you want for the whole LED strip. Therefore you have total control of every aspect of your installation!

Digital LED Strips

Digital LED strips are also called video, dream, pixel or addressable LED strips. All of them belong to the same category.

Color change

The main benefit comparing to analog LED strips is that you can control every single LED diode (nice article) separately (hence addressable LED strip), creating various colours in different sections of one LED strip.

This allows you to use digital LED strips to display even videos. It is achieved thanks to additional chips (IC) directly inside the LED diode or on the digital strip board.

Control system

Digital LED strips are usually more complicated to control since you have to provide video content for the LED strips. Users often use computer software, Art-Net, live video stream or SD card as a video source.

On the hardware level, the digital strips receive the video information over SPI (Serial Protocol Interface). Every single diode of the digital strip uses one chunk of RGB data in SPI data packet.

Now, pay attention, as it gets a bit tricky with digital LED strips SPI communication – there is not only one standard! There are many control IC chips and every one of them uses a different kind of SPI signal. The most common types are WS2811, WS2812, TM1803, TM1809, SK6812, GS8208,UCS, APA102 or APA104.