Unable to get the ws2812 to give any output

I've been at this for a while now with no success. I'm able to get the visualizer working fine on my machine, though I had trouble with that and had to make the following change in visualization.py to get it to work, as well as installing pyqt5 with pip:

 if __name__ == '__main__':
     if config.USE_GUI:
         import pyqtgraph as pg
-        from pyqtgraph.Qt import QtGui, QtCore
+        from pyqtgraph.Qt import QtGui, QtCore, QtWidgets
         # Create GUI window
-        app = QtGui.QApplication([])
+        app = QtWidgets.QApplication([])
         view = pg.GraphicsView()
         layout = pg.GraphicsLayout(border=(100,100,100))
         view.setCentralItem(layout)

My setup is my M1 Mac to run the visualization, a NodeMCU ESP8266, a 5V/2A wall Usb power source and ws2812 LEDs (150) from amazon. I've had success in using the same hardware with this WLED guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8OMi7SMpqs&t=2s so I know the hardware is ok.

I've connected the GND pin to the white wire, the VIN pin to the red wire and the RX pin to the green wire (data) as instructed - but running led.py or visualization.py results in no response from the LEDs.

The only difference is that trying to load the code onto the esp module with the SparkFun ESP8266 Thing board doesn't work and results in
A fatal esptool.py error occurred: Failed to connect to ESP8266: Invalid head of packet (0x46) so i use SparkFun ESP8266 Thing Dev instead, which successfully loads the .ino file onto the board fine for some reason. I've also tried using the Generic ESP8266 Module board on arduino to no avail.

I've triple checked all the configs, and am getting no response from my ESP8266. What could I be doing incorrectly?

scottlawsonbc / audio-reactive-led-strip

Unable to get the ws2812 to give any output #377