Dale is actually very good. He explains us a lot about the requirements and the design of the device. Take for example this wonderful explanation of the LED dimming options:
Just to clarify there are two ways to dim LEDs.
1. Adjust the current as it seems like you are implying. The issues with this is that LEDs do not have a linear response to current, so at 50% current you would not necessary be at 50% brightness. Additionally some LEDs shift “color” with current. If you are just doing white LEDs, they use a phosphor so this might be less, but a RGB led might have a more noticeable shift. Obviously this could be controlled by software.
2. Use PWM (Pulse width modulation). By varying the on time of the LEDs you are able to change the brightness. The possible downside to this is flicker, if the PWM rate isn’t a high enough frequency. The tradeoff here is resolution of dimming versus speed of the PWM. All of this would be under the software control of the ESP8266. We would just want to make sure we have hooked up the control lines to the PWM outputs of the ESP8266 and that it has the built in timer/counters to do this. (While you could do it using software, it would be much easier if you use the built in functions of the processor)
They are a bit different in terms of design requirements, so was just curious if using the current dimming is what you want, or is this more of a question you would want us to help you answer?
Of course we are deciding for the PWM technology.