This project is meant to be a hardware abstraction layer for developing alternative controllers with balena. It automatically detects sensors over I2C and publishes the data in real time through a websocket.
Inside the sensors directory we have the base class for the sensors inside the lib directory. A general HardwareSensor class is provided for generic sensors. Right now, the only specialized class is I2CSensor.
By subclassing HardwareSensor and implementing the _setup_channels and _read_from_device methods, the server is able to automatically detect and publish the retrieved data.
The data can either be sent as a BinaryChannel, for things like buttons or switches, or as a RealChannel, for things like accelerometers and gyroscopes. The client can then map them to keystrokes and joystick/mouse movements, respectively.
After writing your class, you should register it on the sensors/__init__.py file so that it can be discovered by the server.
- MPU6050 (accelerometer + gyroscope)
- PCF8574 (8-bit I2C GPIO expander)
- PCF8575 (16-bit I2C GPIO expander)
- PN532 (NFC Reader WIP)
Once the server is running, you can use the altctrl-pc software to map your sensors to virtual inputs on your computer!