Easybulb plus automation setup

[Rantindaz 0]

Hi, I'm a complete novice on the programming of lights etc using the cinema vision add on and a complete A to Z setup guide would be fantastic to integrate my new easybulb plus lighting for dimming ,black out , all on to sync up with a sequence. I am running android on a m8 box, And Kodi 6, I have access to a laptop to download any files but don't even know where to begin, any help would be fantastic, thanks

[Ragnarok 198]

4 hours ago, Rantindaz said:

Hi, I'm a complete novice on the programming of lights etc using the cinema vision add on and a complete A to Z setup guide would be fantastic to integrate my new easybulb plus lighting for dimming ,black out , all on to sync up with a sequence. I am running android on a m8 box, And Kodi 6, I have access to a laptop to download any files but don't even know where to begin, any help would be fantastic, thanks

No worries at all. I'll tell ya what, you help me figure out how to set this up and send over some screenshots and I'll create your Action Files.  That way we get a working guide and Actions out of our effort. What all did you have to do to set up your EasyBulbs? I've checked out their API, and I think I've got this right. You'll need to input the MAC (of your HTPC) address and Group ID for whatever action you want to take. To start, lets try dimming the lights for Trivia:

# Dims RGBW bulbs to 5
http://api.easybulb.com/v1/rgbw/off/<easybulb-group-id>
HEADERS:{"MAC": "<mac-address>"}
POST:{'brightness':5}

# Dims White bulbs to 5
http://api.easybulb.com/v1/white/off/<easybulb-group-id>
HEADERS:{"MAC": "<mac-address>"}
POST:{'brightness':5}

 

[Rantindaz 0]

Sounds cool I'll work on it tonight thanks

As I said before I'm a complete newbie at this, where do I input this data and do I have to activate anything before entering the add on in Kodi or is it all done via the add on itself.? The bulbs themselves have been linked to my sky hub via their own wifi router by using the free iOS app from easybulb.

[Ragnarok 198]

20 hours ago, Rantindaz said:

Sounds cool I'll work on it tonight thanks

As I said before I'm a complete newbie at this, where do I input this data and do I have to activate anything before entering the add on in Kodi or is it all done via the add on itself.? The bulbs themselves have been linked to my sky hub via their own wifi router by using the free iOS app from easybulb.

No worries at all. That's why we've created this handy-dandy guide to help walk people through setting up Actions. Let me know if you need any help. I'd suggest creating an Action Module in your Sequence right before your trailers and pointing that Action Module to the Action File you've created using the code in my earlier post. Then test the Action File to see if it's working. If it's not, we'll need to take another look at how the bulbs work and adapt. Make sure to replace the variables with your MAC and Group ID.

[Rantindaz 0]

whats the group id is it the name ive given the bulbs?

 

[Ragnarok 198]

12 minutes ago, Rantindaz said:

whats the group id is it the name ive given the bulbs?

 

To be honest, I'm not 100% sure. Their API documentation doesn't say so I assumed it was something set in the set-up process for the bulbs. The documentation does say you can leave the Group ID off to send the command to all of your bulbs, so you could remove it as well.

[Rantindaz 0]

Does this work straight from the app or do you need an automation add on to sync up with it to work, below is the what I'm getting when I press test

[Ragnarok 198]

47 minutes ago, Rantindaz said:

Does this work straight from the app or do you need an automation add on to sync up with it to work, below is the what I'm getting when I press test

It should work straight from CinemaVision as long as the lights are on the network. From what I see in the screenshot, you have <easybulb-group-cinema> in the file. I'm guessing your group is called cinema? If it is, change <easybulb-group-cinema> to cinema. You could also remove that entirely and it should (according to the documentation) turn all of your EasyBulb lights off.

[Rantindaz 0]

Still no luck, I'll have another crack at it tomorrow, thanks for your help

[Ragnarok 198]

10 minutes ago, Rantindaz said:

Still no luck, I'll have another crack at it tomorrow, thanks for your help

We're gonna figure this out...  Would you mind PMing me the MAC address of the computer running CinemaVision? I'll try to set up the Action Files and PM them over to you for testing, just in case something is lost in translation. Don't forget to send over what you know about initially setting up the EasyBulb stuff so I can start to bang out a guide for everyone to use.

[Rantindaz 0]

It looks like the problem may be that the api address may now be invalid so I'm gonna try the milight one if I can find it as it is basically the same system rebranded as the iOS remote app works on the bulbs

Limitless is the same as well

[slowpoke115 1]

No idea if it's any use but I wrote some code for easybulb using the limitless api, there's a link here http://www.limitlessled.com/dev/  if you're interested, there's a handful of these companies which all use the same api but work in the same way.

With easybulb and limitless the "group" basically refers to the way in which one or more bulbs are categorised together, they must be grouped first; you can't screw in a bulb and expect it to work (I'm sure this is mentioned in the instructions). I had to buy the wireless bridge for my code to work from what I recall. The process is something like screw in bulb, run app, associate with group (the groups are 1-4, although they can be named in the app the number is consistent).

 

 

Edited March 24, 2016 by slowpoke115
Adding additional details.

[Rantindaz 0]

Thanks I'll try it later

[slowpoke115 1]

I'd question that api page personally given that the url doesn't even resolve... I think the MAC address used for auth is the wireless interface of the bridge. The bridge has two interfaces, a wireless one and a wired one, the wired one uses DHCP and connects to your router and the wireless one has a 10.X address which connects to the bulbs. What I'm not sure of is where the api address comes from. I'll have a look for you when I get home anyway, I wouldn't mind getting this working either so I'll put in some work on it. If I can't figure out how to do it via a HTTP request I'll put together some python or php or something which sends a UDP packet... Anyway I'll give it some thought and help if I can :).

[Rantindaz 0]

Any input would be great as I haven't got a clue where to start!!! I've never had to input codes etc so it would be great to learn something as well, thanks

[slowpoke115 1]

OK, got my easy bulbs switching on and off via command line, I can't do this without the bridge though, I'll paste the script for one of my rooms now, this may make the remaining rooms obvious - I'll put a wealth of comments in to is makes some sense. 

 

#!/bin/bash

#The IP is my bridge (yours will be different).
IP=192.168.0.196
#The port is mentioned in the link I pasted earlier (yours will be the same).
PORT=8899

#The following is a list of codes from the limitless page, they only detail how to switch a zone/group on and off (there are more codes on the page).
#Colour LED Bulbs:
#45 00 55 - Zone 1 On
#46 00 55 - Zone 1 Off
#47 00 55 - Zone 2 On
#48 00 55 - Zone 2 Off
#49 00 55 - Zone 3 On
#4A 00 55 - Zone 3 Off
#4B 00 55 - Zone 4 On
#4C 00 55 - Zone 4 Off

#White LED Bulbs:
#38 00 55 - Zone 1 On
#3B 00 55 - Zone 1 Off
#3D 00 55 - Zone 2 On
#33 00 55 - Zone 2 Off
#37 00 55 - Zone 3 On
#3A 00 55 - Zone 3 Off
#32 00 55 - Zone 4 On
#36 00 55 - Zone 4 Off

#All these messages seem to end in 0055, so let's make that constant, it's not gonna change regardless of what I send.
MESSAGE="\x00\x55"

#I'm interested in group 2 where I have coloured bulbs, I need a command for on and one for off.
OFF="\x48"
ON="\x47"

#So combine the numbers above with the message (making 47 00 55) then send it via netcat to the specific IP and port detailed.
echo -n -e $ON$MESSAGE | nc -u -w 1 $IP $PORT
sleep 8
#Do the other command to check to make sure the inverse workse.
echo -n -e $OFF$MESSAGE | nc -u -w 1 $IP $PORT

 

[Rantindaz 0]

Cool, typical I'm away from home till Monday and I really wanna try this out, thanks for your work on this I'm sure it's gonna benefit lots of people

[slowpoke115 1]

It's probably not that much use to most people, you'll also need a bridge and finally it doesn't work with cinemavision directly (I think all you can do with the actions is call url's). I've got some of the other commands to work though (such as dimming), I'll keep toying with it and see if I can get any further.

[Rantindaz 0]

When you say a bridge is that the wifi box that runs the easy bulb set up, I wonder if the cinema vision add on will include more action options in the future

[slowpoke115 1]

One of these: http://shop.easybulb.com/wifi-box-1

There are three ways to control the bulbs: with a remote control which you buy, with the iPhone app or with the wifi-box/bridge above. If you buy the bridge you can control the bulbs yourself. In my case I have a script which works out when movies are playing and switches off the lights. This works fine, except with cinemavision if switches the lights back on between trailers. I've never managed to get the api to work.

I don't know enough about the actions really, I'm pretty new to cinemavision

[slowpoke115 1]

OK, I've got this working for my setup, I'll talk you through what I've done and hopefully ragnorak will be able to point out more efficient ways of doing things (I'm sure there are better ways).

1. So first thing I did was make a bash script, it takes the hostname of the kodi implementation and links it to the group, then takes 1 of 4 arguments and acts on it: Link.

2. Next thing to do was put the script either on my NFS share or on the actual system itself, I couldn't get the NFS share to execute code, long story short I put the file in: "/storage/.kodi/userdata/lights.sh" on each of my kodi systems.

3. Then I opened up cinema vision and I made four files and stored them on an NFS share: off (switches the lights off) on (switches the lights on) dim down (switches the lights to their lowest brightness) dime (switches the lights to the maximum brightness). Not sure why I can't keep the incorrect spellings of these links. 

4. I added an action and pointed them to the four files mentioned in 3, tested them all and then put them into my sequence file.

The things which will need changing are the code, my kodi boxes are named upstairs and downstairs, it will only work with that hostname. Overall I'm moderately happy with this and I'm happy to help anyone who's struggling.

[Rantindaz 0]

Can't wait to get home on Monday and try all this. Hopefully I won't have to badger you too much for help, amazing job thanks very much

[Ragnarok 198]

On 3/26/2016 at 7:51 PM, Rantindaz said:

Can't wait to get home on Monday and try all this. Hopefully I won't have to badger you too much for help, amazing job thanks very much

Let us know how it goes today!

[Rantindaz 0]

Not good so far !!!!! Ha

[slowpoke115 1]

I'll try and get this sorted via private messages, think the walkthrough is the same, but it's a little more complex as Rantindaz can't remotely connect to kodi (I've got openelec so can just ssh). I'll also need to tweak my script for Rantindaz's setup I suspect.

[Ragnarok 198]

5 hours ago, slowpoke115 said:

I'll try and get this sorted via private messages, think the walkthrough is the same, but it's a little more complex as Rantindaz can't remotely connect to kodi (I've got openelec so can just ssh). I'll also need to tweak my script for Rantindaz's setup I suspect.

If you would, shoot me over an outline of your guide and I'll put all of this info together for other folks to use. If you can, grab screenshots where necessary.