Revision as of 17:27, 1 April 2014

The xPL home state device stores the current state of different devices such as lights, shutters, etc… This information can be retrieved by clients such as web 2.0 pages in order to display the proper state of the devices to be controlled.

The state update is best controlled with the help of the central xPL device.

Before all,make sure you have installed an xPL hub.

Home state information

The home state information is stored in an XML file. It is categorised in 4 hierarchy levels:

• the room
• the kind, such as lights, shutters, etc…
• the object: an object of the kind given by an identifier, such as table for the lamp above the table
• the value, such as on or off

The following example shows a possible content of /home/control/Documents/Controls/state.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<state>
  <lounge name="lights" center="off" entry="off" stand="off" table="off" />
  <lounge name="shutters" center="up" east="up" west="up" />
  <lounge name="audio" balance="0" power="on" mute="off" source="CD" surround="stereoSub" volume="50" />
  <lounge name="screen" aspect="43" input="RGB" power="on" />
  <study name="lights" ceiling="off" stand="off" />
  <study name="shutters" window="louvresDown" />
  <study name="audio" balance="0" source="CD" power="off" volume="30" />
</state>

The home state information is both updated and queried with the help of xPL messages.

Install xPL home state device

Download the xPL home state script.

Move the script to xPL scripts directory:

SCRIPTS_BASE_DIR=/home/control/Documents/Controls
mv xpl-homeState.pl $SCRIPTS_BASE_DIR
chown control:users $SCRIPTS_BASE_DIR/*.pl
chmod 775 $SCRIPTS_BASE_DIR/*.pl

Test xPL home state device

Test it on a BeagleBone:

su control
SCRIPTS_BASE_DIR=/home/control/Documents/Controls
$SCRIPTS_BASE_DIR/xpl-homeState.pl -h
$SCRIPTS_BASE_DIR/xpl-homeState.pl -v -n home

Open a 2nd terminal window (on any machine with xPL installed) and monitor the xPL protocol:

SCRIPTS_BASE_DIR=/home/control/Documents/Controls
$SCRIPTS_BASE_DIR/xpl-monitor.pl -vf

Open another terminal and send a message to the serial port:

su control
SCRIPTS_BASE_DIR=/home/control/Documents/Controls
$SCRIPTS_BASE_DIR/xpl-send.pl -v -c pingPong.basic message=ping

The monitor should display the ping message, directly followed by a pong message emitted by the xPL central device.

Launch the xPL home state device at startup

The xPL central device is to be launched after the xPL hub.

Ubuntu

On Ubuntu, the xPL central device starts-up once xpl-hub_started has been emitted.

Edit /etc/init/xpl-homeState.conf:

################################################################################
# xPL central message parser
#
description "xPL central message parser"
version     "1.0"
author      "Francois Corthay"

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Configuration variables
#
env SCRIPTS_DIR='/home/control/Documents/Controls'
env SCRIPT_NAME='xpl-homeState.pl'
env PARAMETERS='-n home'

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Start and stop conditions
#
start on xpl-hub_started
stop on shutdown
respawn
setuid control
setgid users

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Start daemon
#
exec $SCRIPTS_DIR/$SCRIPT_NAME $PARAMETERS

Start the device and test it:

su root
service xpl-central start
service xpl-central status

SCRIPTS_BASE_DIR=/home/control/Documents/Controls
$SCRIPTS_BASE_DIR/xpl-send.pl -v -c pingPong.basic message=ping

Mac OS

On Mac OS, the xPL central device starts-up later than the hub.

Edit /Library/LaunchDaemons/xpl-central.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>xPL central message parser</string>
    <key>OnDemand</key>
    <false/>
    <key>UserName</key>
    <string>control</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
      <string>/Users/control/Documents/Controls/xpl-central.pl</string>
      <string>-n</string>
      <string>lounge</string>
      <string>-w</string>
      <string>25</string>
      <string>-a</string>
      <string>/Users/control/Documents/Controls/centralActions.xml</string>
    </array>
  </dict>
</plist>

Start the device and test it:

su root
launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/xpl-central.plist

SCRIPTS_BASE_DIR=/Users/control/Documents/Controls
$SCRIPTS_BASE_DIR/xpl-send.pl -v -c pingPong.basic message=ping