Home Assistant provides a platform for home automation. It does so by having modules that observe and trigger actors to do various tasks.
It is currently able to do the following things:
- Track if devices are home by monitoring connected devices to a wireless router
- Turn on the lights when people get home when it is dark
- Slowly turn on the lights to compensate for light loss when the sun sets
- Turn off the lights when everybody leaves the house
- Start YouTube video's on the Chromecast
- Download files to the host
- Open a url in the default browser on the host
It currently works with any wireless router with Tomato firmware in combination with Philips Hue and the Google Chromecast. The system is built modular so support for other wireless routers, other devices or actions can be implemented easily.
- Install python modules PyEphem, Requests and PHue:
pip install pyephem requests phue - Clone the repository and pull in the submodules
git clone --recursive https://github.com/balloob/home-assistant.git - Copy home-assistant.conf.default to home-assistant.conf and adjust the config values to match your setup.
- For Tomato you will have to not only setup your host, username and password but also a http_id. The http_id can be retrieved by going to the admin console of your router, view the source of any of the pages and search for
http_id.
- For Tomato you will have to not only setup your host, username and password but also a http_id. The http_id can be retrieved by going to the admin console of your router, view the source of any of the pages and search for
- Setup PHue by running
python -m phue --host HUE_BRIDGE_IP_ADDRESSfrom the commandline. - The first time the script will start it will create a file called
known_devices.csvwhich will contain the detected devices. Adjust the track variable for the devices you want the script to act on and restart the script.
Done. Start it now by running python start.py
Home Assistent runs a webserver accessible on port 8123. At http://localhost:8123/ it will provide a debug interface showing the current state of the system. At http://localhost:8123/api/ it provides a password protected API so it can be controlled from other devices through HTTP POST requests.
A screenshot of the debug interface (battery and charging states are controlled by my phone):
To interface with the API requests should include the parameter api_password which matches the api_password in home-assistant.conf.
All API calls have to be accompanied by an 'api_password' parameter and will return JSON. If successful calls will return status code 200 or 201.
Other status codes that can occur are:
- 400 (Bad Request)
- 401 (Unauthorized)
- 404 (Not Found)
- 405 (Method not allowed)
The api supports the following actions:
/api/states - GET
Returns a list of categories for which a state is available
Example result:
"categories": [
"Paulus_Nexus_4",
"weather.sun",
"all_devices"
]
}```
`/api/states/<category>` - GET
Returns the current state from a category
Example result:
```json{
"attributes": {
"next_rising": "07:04:15 29-10-2013",
"next_setting": "18:00:31 29-10-2013"
},
"category": "weather.sun",
"last_changed": "23:24:33 28-10-2013",
"state": "below_horizon"
}```
`/api/states/<category>` - POST
Updates the current state of a category. Returns status code 201 if successful
with location header of updated resource.
parameter: new_state - string
optional parameter: attributes - JSON encoded object
`/api/events/<event_type>` - POST
Fires an event with event_type
optional parameter: event_data - JSON encoded object
Example result:
```json{
"message": "Event download_file fired."
}```
Android remote control
----------------------
Using [Tasker for Android](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm) I built an Android app that:
* Provides buttons to control the lights and the chromecast
* Sent updates every 30 minutes on the battery status
* Sent updates when the phone is being charged via usb or wireless
The [APK](https://raw.github.com/balloob/home-assistant/master/android-tasker/Home_Assistant.apk) and [Tasker project XML](https://raw.github.com/balloob/home-assistant/master/android-tasker/Home_Assistant.prj.xml) can be found in [/android-tasker/](https://github.com/balloob/home-assistant/tree/master/android-tasker)
Architecture
------------
Home Assistent has been built from the ground up with extensibility and modularity in mind. It is easy to swap in a different device tracker that polls another wireless router for example.
The beating heart of Home Assistant is an event bus. Different modules are able to fire and listen for specific events. On top of this is a state machine that allows modules to track the state of different things. For example each device that is being tracked will have a state of either 'Home' or 'Not Home'.
This allows us to implement simple business rules to easily customize or extend functionality:
In the event that the state of device 'Paulus Nexus 4' changes to the 'Home' state:
If the sun has set and the lights are not on:
Turn on the lights
In the event that the combined state of all tracked devices changes to 'Not Home':
If the lights are on:
Turn off the lights
In the event of the sun setting:
If the lights are off and the combined state of all tracked device equals 'Home':
Turn on the lights
These rules are currently implemented in the file [actors.py](https://github.com/balloob/home-assistant/blob/master/homeassistant/actors.py).
### Supported observers
**track_sun**
Tracks the state of the sun and when the next sun rising and setting will occur.
Depends on: latitude and longitude
Action: maintains state of `weather.sun` including attributes `next_rising` and `next_setting`
**TomatoDeviceScanner**
A device scanner that scans a Tomato-based router and retrieves currently connected devices. To be used by `DeviceTracker`.
Depends on: host, username, password and http_id to login to Tomato Router.
**DeviceTracker**
Keeps track of which devices are currently home.
Depends on: a device scanner
Action: sets the state per device and maintains a combined state called `all_devices`. Keeps track of known devices in the file `known_devices.csv`.
### Supported actors
**HueLightControl**
A light control for controlling the Philips Hue lights.
**LightTrigger**
Turns lights on or off using supplied light control based on state of the sun and devices that are home.
Depends on: light control, track_sun, DeviceTracker
Action:
* Turns lights off when all devices leave home.
* Turns lights on when a device is home while sun is setting.
* Turns lights on when a device gets home after sun set.
Listens for events `turn_light_on` and `turn_light_off`:
Turn a or all lights on or off
Optional event_data:
- `light_id` - only act on specific light. Else targets all.
- `transition_seconds` - seconds to take to swithc to new state.
**file_downloader**
Listen for `download_file` events to start downloading from the `url` specified in event_data.
**webbrowser**
Listen for `browse_url` events and opens a browser with the `url` specified in event_data.
**chromecast**
Listen for `chromecast.play_youtube_video` events and starts playing the specified video on the YouTube app on the ChromeCast. Specify video using `video` in event_data.
Also listens for `start_fireplace` and `start_epic_sax` events to play a pre-defined movie.
**media_buttons**
Listens for the events `keyboard.volume_up`, `keyboard.volume_down` and `keyboard.media_play_pause` to simulate the pressing of the appropriate media button.
Depends on: PyUserInput