Indeed, I did have an LED dimmer that I wanted to repurpose for this project, but it arrived broken (small SMD part was damaged and there's no space to replace it since the trace also came off from the board due to the nature of the damage). On top of that it was kind of a challenge to make something personal instead of using a readymade solution.
But yeah, an LED dimmer or motor controller should work as well, maybe I have a spare motor controller laying around somewhere 
But then again.. I think it's a good exercise to make a circuit. Have to start somewhere.