- Vimpo hosted a Minecraft server on a cheap smart LED bulb from AliExpress
- The bulb used a BL602 RISC-V microcontroller running at 192 megahertz.
- The microcontroller had 276 kilobytes of RAM and 128 kilobytes of ROM.
A hardware enthusiast known as Vimpo has adopted the phrase “can it run Doom?” to a new level by managing to host a Minecraft server in a smart and affordable LED bulb.
The project began with a light bulb purchased on AliExpress powered by a BL602 RISC-V microcontroller, a tiny chip with a single 192 MHz core, 276 KB of RAM, and minimal I/O.
Despite such limited hardware, Vimpo successfully transformed the light bulb into a fully functioning game server.
From light source to game host
The hardware hacker began by opening the bulb’s casing and carefully removing its microcontroller.
Wires were then soldered to their headers and connected to a USB-to-serial adapter to establish a stable communication interface.
This setup allowed Vimpo to control the light bulb, turning it on and off before turning it into what he calls a “system” ready to host a Minecraft server.
Although the process seemed more like electronic tinkering than traditional web hosting, it essentially mimicked the logic behind setting up the remote server.
The software portion of the project was where the real challenge lay.
Running a Minecraft server on such restricted hardware required a simplified implementation called Ucraft.
Vimpo notes that “the binary size is approximately 46 KB without authentication and 90 KB with the authentication library.”
Even under the stress of ten players, the total memory usage barely exceeded 70 KB.
Those numbers may impress anyone familiar with the typical game server hosting demands, however, Vimpo admits that Ucraft “lacks most, if not all, basic server features.”
While server performance won’t replace professional Minecraft server hosting anytime soon, the experiment shows how flexible integrated systems can be.
The smart light bulb has essentially become a miniature web hosting device, although its capabilities remain more of a novelty than a practical advancement.
Still, this joins a growing list of unconventional technological feats, from running ChatGPT-like AI models within Minecraft to recreating the game using COBOL code.
Projects like Vimpo’s lightbulb server remind us that curiosity, not utility, often drives hardware innovation: in technology, there’s a fine line between creativity and absurdity, and modern game server hosting can be reinvented on the smallest scale possible.
It may not light up the world of computing, but it certainly illuminated the idea of what “running Minecraft” can mean.
Via Toms Hardware
Look
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to receive news, reviews and opinions from our experts in your feeds. Be sure to click the Follow button!
And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form and receive regular updates from us on WhatsApp also.
