Magic Lights: Controlling Hue with a Raspberry Pi

This post shows you how to control the Hue light bulbs using a Raspberry Pi. In particular, it shows you how to fade up your lights half an hour before to sunset. In true Heath Robinson style the solution is rather convoluted. But hey, that's where the fun resides. Email me, Sun First, we set … Continue reading Magic Lights: Controlling Hue with a Raspberry Pi →

Doing Useful Things with WeMo Motion

Using both the WeMo Motion rules and IFTTT allows you to do certain things with this motion detector. However, to expand our possibilities it would help if we could store our motion data and make it accessible to the programs that we write. To store our motion data in a database we need a bit … Continue reading Doing Useful Things with WeMo Motion →

Simple Dropbox BackUp on Raspberry Pi

So one of my Raspberry Pis died. I think the USB hub was faulty causing power spikes that eventually fried the SD cards and Pi circuitry. Luckily my workflow of working on the iPad meant the code was all still intact on Textastic. It did, however, make me implement a basic backup system. This goes … Continue reading Simple Dropbox BackUp on Raspberry Pi →

Accessing Our Sensor Data: PHP + SQLite + SVG

So we have our sensor(s) dutifully logging their data to an SQLite database. Now we need to process and view this data. LASP First we need to set our Raspberry Pi up as a webserver. This typically requires: Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP - a LAMP framework. There is a handy guide: here (thanks Dave!). … Continue reading Accessing Our Sensor Data: PHP + SQLite + SVG →

Databases for Sensor Data in Python

Here are some options to persistently store sensor data in a database using python. Anydbm For simple key-value pairs the anydbm module looks the best. It stores values as strings. Because of this you may need to use another module called pickle to convert non-string values into strings. For example: import anydbm, pickle from datetime … Continue reading Databases for Sensor Data in Python →

Simple Energy Monitoring on Raspberry Pi

So. Reading an LCD screen was more difficult than I first assumed. My code is still good for reading my Thermostat values. However for energy monitoring and £20 I found a better solution. Looking on the net a particular model of energy monitor was recommended for easy monitoring: the Current Cost EnviR. This monitor has … Continue reading Simple Energy Monitoring on Raspberry Pi →

Home Inputs & Outputs

If thinking about the home as a system I need to look at Input/Output (I/O) options. If using a biological model the inputs map to senses and the outputs to muscles and nervous system control. I do not have all these items but hear are some ideas. Inputs Energy Monitor e.g. Owl via CM 160 … Continue reading Home Inputs & Outputs →

Programming a Raspberry Pi from the Sofa

I have set up quite a nifty little workflow for interfacing and programming the Raspberry Pi. SSH Access I have set up the Pi with a static IP address and configured SSH access. Setting up a static IP address is easy with an AirPort Extreme. Using AirPort Utility goto Advanced options>DHCP and NAT>Reservations. Set up … Continue reading Programming a Raspberry Pi from the Sofa →

Face Tracking Robot Arm

Ha - awesome - I have made a face tracking robot arm. The 12 year-old me is so jealous.Here's how I did it (on Ubuntu 12.04 but should be portable to the Raspberry Pis):I installed SimpleCV: - http://simplecv.org/ .(I love this - makes it so simple to prototype.)I built this robot arm: - http://www.maplin.co.uk/robotic-arm-kit-with-usb-pc-interface-266257 .I installed pyusb: … Continue reading Face Tracking Robot Arm →

Scanning to the Cloud: Fujitsu Scansnap S1500 + Raspberry Pi

Process Flow Get Input to Initiate Scan Scan Using Auto-Document Feed Post Processing Import to Evernote (via email) Install Scanning Driver & Utilities Typically, using: sudo apt-get install sane You may need to adjust permissions for the scanners. I found as a non-root user I could not see any scanners when using: scanadf -L or … Continue reading Scanning to the Cloud: Fujitsu Scansnap S1500 + Raspberry Pi →