Full-automatic day-round control of hue lights using light sensors on a Beaglebone Black. (A bit like what Stack Lighting's upcoming Alba light promises to do). Started with the question: can't we just get rid of light controls altogether? Hue Daylight Harvester does the following continuously:
- measure ambient light (daylight + artificial light) and fluidly adjusts hue light to come as close as possible to a 'desired' light level. This means turning down or off when the sun shines, turning back on when it suddenly gets cloudy, etc.
- provide normal light level from breakfast throughout day; gradual dimming between dinner and midnight, fading out after midnight, off at night
- set neutral color temperature during the day, fading to a warm and cozy temperature throughout the evening.
- Only for test use, this stuff is wildly pre-alpha
- Wire up a light sensor (photosensor) to a beaglebone black (be sure to use a pullup resistor). Use Analog In 1 (P9_40). Be sure to use the Analog VDC and Analog GND lines!
- Put the beaglebone and light sensor in a place where they see indirect light on a bright surface. Make sure your hue lights are close enough to the surface to noticably influence its perceived brightness.
- If not yet done, set the timezone on your beaglebone using
dpkg-reconfigure tzdata - npm install packages: q, moment
- In autohue.js, set the USERNAME property to an approved developer name on your bridge (see Hue API site)
- In autohue.js, change the LIGHTS and LIGHTFACTORS arrays to match your setup
- Turn everything on:
node autohue.jsin a SSH console on the beaglebone - In autohue.js, change the DESIRED based on your situation. Look at the 'act' value in the logging for the current value; derive your 'desired' from that.
- Once everything is set, autorun the script (Cloud9 IDE's autorun folder, or a systemd service)
- Fix how scheduled fade-out interferes with harvesting behavior
- Add script to install into systemd (cloud9 autorun folder is insecure and starts it before wifi is up, failing bridge connection)
Taco Ekkel & Chris Waalberg