Luckily, my show runs automatically and yours can too. But how does it work?

To automate your show each night you have (2) options – you can either use your sequencing program (Vixen, xLights, or LOR) or a special piece of software called Falcon Player, which runs on Raspberry Pi microcomputers.

Each has its pros and cons, which is why I want to go into detail here and share how they each work, and why you should choose one over the other.

How Will Your Show Run?

Before we talk about the specific programs to run your show automatically, let’s first consider the different options that we have for our show’s setup. That is, how we will structure our different sequences and playlists for the show each night.

All 3 options of scheduler do the same type of thing, just all in their own ways.

When you’re planning your show, you’ve got a few options for how to structure your light show:

• A single playlist that loops – Your show will start, play through all of the songs and repeating, and then at the end of the night it will either finish out or cut off when the song finishes after the “End Time” that you set.
• A randomized playlist – Your show will play the songs in random order until the “End Time”.
• A beginning/end playlist – You can also specify certain sequences to start or end your show, and these will just run once each night. This is a good idea if you have a lot of traffic to your display, as it communicates that the show is just beginning/ending.
• Background playlist – Need a prop to simply run all night with the same sequence? A background playlist can ensure that elements such as a “tune-to” sign stay lit in the same pattern all night.

On top of that, you can set your schedules to be at the same exact times every day, or you can have them run at different times every day!

This can be helpful if you only want to run on weekends or if you just want to do fewer hours during a week – a great way to keep the neighbors happy!

Now that we’ve discussed how to structure your different sequences and playlists, let’s talk about the 3 different schedulers we can use:

Running Your Show via xLights or Vixen

Both xLights and Vixen have built-in functionality to run your show completely from within the program.

In xLights, this is called xSchedule, and in Vixen it’s called the Scheduler.

But should you run your show off your computer?

On the positives – it’s the easiest and simplest way to get a show up and running. You can do everything from your single computer, so you don’t have to worry about transferring files and keeping everything on your microcomputer up to date.

You also can run a LOT of pixels – depending on the computer, you may be able to run over 1 million pixels!

If you’re using xSchedule, you’ll also get a “Status” window that shows all of your controllers and alerts you if there are any problems: