sepro / Flask-SmartLight

Code to turn a computer (e.g. raspberry pi) with a blinkstick square into a remote controlled smartlight

NOTE: This project has been archived. As the BlinkStick Square is supported by home assistant, this is a better way to control it using a smart phone. Albeit, lacking some of the animations included here.

Flask-SmartLight Readme

Flask-SmartLight is a Python Flask app to turn a computer (e.g. a raspberry pi) connected to a BlinkStick Square into a remote controlled smart light.

Installation

Python >= 3.3 and pip3 are required

sudo apt-get install python3
sudo apt-get install pip3
# or on some systems 
sudo apt-get install python-pip3

Install virtualenv

sudo pip3 install virtualenv

Clone the repository into a directory CookieRunner

git clone https://github.com/sepro/Flask-SmartLight.git Flask-SmartLight

Set up the virtual environment

virtualenv --python=python3 Flask-SmartLight/venv

Activate the virtual environment

cd Flask-SmartLight/
source venv/bin/activate

Install the requirements

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Copy the configuration template to config.py

cp config.template.py config.py

Change settings in config.py

Running the app

I ran into trouble running the app using the uwsgi version included in raspbian. The solution was to run uwsgi in the virtual environment trough supervisor and hook that up to nginx.

Install supervisor and nginx

sudo apt-get supervisor nginx

Install uwsgi through pip3 within the virtual environment

# Activate the virtual environment if this isn't done so
cd Flask-SmartLight/
source venv/bin/activate

# install uwsgi
pip3 install uwsgi

To set up supervisor create a file called /etc/supervisor/conf.d/smartlight.conf

sudo nano /etc/supervisor/conf.d/smartlight.conf

Add these setting to this file: make sure to replace /home/sepro/git/Flask-SmartLight with the path on your machine!

[program:smartlight]
command=uwsgi -s /tmp/smartlight.sock -w smartlight:app --enable-threads -H /home/sepro/git/Flask-SmartLight/venv/ --uid www-data --gid www-data --chmod-socket=777
directory=/home/sepro/git/Flask-SmartLight
environment=PATH="/home/sepro/git/Flask-SmartLight/venv/bin"
autostart=true
autorestart=true
stderr_logfile=/var/log/smartlight.err.log
stdout_logfile=/var/log/smartlight.out.log

To set up nginx create a file called /etc/nginx/sites-available/smartlight

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/smartlight

Add these settings to this file, it will bind the app to port 8000

server {
        listen 8000 default_server;
        listen [::]:8000 default_server;

        server_name _;
        location / { try_files $uri @smartlight; }
        location @smartlight {
            include uwsgi_params;
            uwsgi_pass unix:/tmp/smartlight.sock;
        }
}

Create a link to this file in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/smartlight /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/smartlight

Restart the deamons

sudo service supervisor restart
sudo service nginx restart

Check the supervisor log if everything is working

cat /var/log/smartlight.err.log

Setting up usb for non-root on Raspberry pi

# add a group called usb and add the user to this group
# replace <username> with the user's name
sudo groupadd usb
sudo usermod -a -G usb <username>

# give this group access to usb devices
sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/99-com.rules

# **add** the line below
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", GROUP="usb", MODE="0666"

# restart the device with
sudo reboot