Grandma

How does she do that?

Using a MicroPython board, humans can press the green button when the coffee is done or the red button when the coffee is over.

If the coffee is done, Grandma will post on your favorite Slack channel a notification about it.

If someone press the button again in less than 20 minutes, she will not send messages to avoid spam. For now, she will not let you know when the coffee is over but soon you will be able to ask her about it.

For this project I'm using an ESP 8266. Under the hood when a button is pressed a new request to the API saying if the coffee is done or over.

Running

First things first: your need a Slack Bot with permissions to publish messages. Go to Slack APPs, create one and come back.

That said, make sure your file .env is updated with all the environment variables needed:

export SLACK_BOT_TOKEN='xxx'
export DEFAULT_CHANNEL='random'
export AMPY_PORT=/dev/tty.SLAB_USBtoUART

Run source .env to load on your environment. After it, run make install to install the dependencies. You may run make test or pytest to make sure everything is ok.

This project is divided in two: board and server. In the board module all the code related to MicroPython. In the server package the API and the bot code.

Server

We need to store the coffee memory somewhere, right? Let's init the db:

make init-db

Now it's time to spin it up the API:

make run

It will be available on http://localhost:5000/. We just ran a simple API with three endpoints:

The home (/) will list all the coffees that Grandma did. The other endpoints will be available to the board updates when the coffee is done or over.

Pyboard

Before we get started with the board code, you must update the file grandma/board/access.py with the secrets of your API and network. The boards needs the network credentials in order to be in the same network as the API.

API_URL = '192.168.0.24'  # be careful it may change
API_PORT = 5000
NETWORK_NAME = 'yyyy'
NETWORK_PASSWORD = 'xxxxxx'

To keep it running as soon as it is connected to an energy source, run make deploy-to-board. This command will copy the needed files into the board.

If you'd like running it from your machine:

ampy run -n grandma/board/board.py

All together!

Ok, let's say everything went fine so far. To test it, press one of the buttons and check the logs. Would look like this:

FLASK_APP=grandma/server/main.py flask run  --host=0.0.0.0
 * Serving Flask app "grandma/server/main.py"
 * Environment: production
   WARNING: Do not use the development server in a production environment.
   Use a production WSGI server instead.
 * Debug mode: off
sqlite:////home/ana/workspace/grandma/grandma.db
 * Running on http://0.0.0.0:5000/ (Press CTRL+C to quit)
192.168.0.33 - - [16/Sep/2018 16:05:40] "GET /coffee/done HTTP/1.0" 200 -
INFO:werkzeug:192.168.0.33 - - [16/Sep/2018 16:05:40] "GET /coffee/done HTTP/1.0" 200 -
192.168.0.33 - - [16/Sep/2018 16:05:41] "GET /coffee/over HTTP/1.0" 200 -
INFO:werkzeug:192.168.0.33 - - [16/Sep/2018 16:05:41] "GET /coffee/over HTTP/1.0" 200 -

What comes next?

Well, the idea was having some smart bot to chat about the coffee. I've been doing some research on conversational APIs. I would say that Granny will get smarter soon. :)

Troubleshooting

API

SlackLoginError

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/ana.gomes/.pyenv/versions/3.6.4/lib/python3.6/site-packages/slackclient/client.py", line 52, in rtm_connect
    self.server.rtm_connect(use_rtm_start=with_team_state, **kwargs)
  File "/Users/ana.gomes/.pyenv/versions/3.6.4/lib/python3.6/site-packages/slackclient/server.py", line 151, in rtm_connect
    raise SlackLoginError(reply=reply)
slackclient.server.SlackLoginError

You must set SLACK_BOT_TOKEN as environment variable.

Board

Missing option "--port"

ampy run -n grandma/board.py
Usage: ampy [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

Error: Missing option "--port" / "-p".

You must set AMPY_PORT as environment variable like AMPY_PORT=/dev/tty.SLAB_USBtoUART. Or adding it as an argument:

ampy run -n grandma/board.py -p /dev/tty.SLAB_USBtoUART

PS.: -n stands for / --no-output

I pressed the button, the light is on and nothing happens...

Houston, we have a problem. Check the variable API_URL on access.py. Either you don't have it or the IP is wrong.

If the problem persists could be a MicroPython issue that happens when reopening WiFi connection. You may reset the board and check it again.

anapaulagomes / grandma