bravtroller

Controller for Sony Bravia KDL-50W700.

Installing

bravtroller is available on Rubygems. You can install it with:

$ gem install bravtroller

You can also add it to your Gemfile:

gem 'bravtroller'

What is it?

My Sony TV (a KDL-50W700) has an API. It's a weird combination of custom Sony JSON-over-HTTP and UPnP/SOAP. I wanted a Ruby library to control it, so I created this. I wouldn't be very surprised if other network-enabled Sony devices supported roughly the same interface.

Authentication

Summary

My TV requires that a device authenticate with it before controlling it remotely. You can use Bravtroller::Authenticator to do that. This is what happens:

1. Bravtroller::Authenticator initiates an authentication request
2. The TV displays a 4 digit security code
3. A user-provided block is called to supply the security code (I just used gets)
4. The security code is submitted to the TV, and Bravtroller will then be authenticated

Example

require 'bravtroller/client'
require 'bravtroller/authenticator'

auth = Bravtroller::Authenticator.new(BRAVIA_IP_ADDRESS)

a.authorized?
# => false

# This will initiate the procedure described above. The string returned is a cookie used by the SOAP client
a.authorize { gets.strip }
# > 3
# => "auth=xxxxxxx"

a.authorized?
# => true

Example usage

The below example assumes Bravtroller has already been authenticated:

Remote emulator

require 'bravtroller/client'
require 'bravtroller/remote'

remote = Bravtroller::Remote.new(BRAVIA_IP_ADDRESS)

remote.buttons
# => ["PowerOff", "Input", "GGuide", "EPG", "Favorites", "Display", "Home", "Options", "Return", "Up", "Down", "Right", "Left", "Confirm", "Red", "Green", "Yellow", "Blue", "Num1", "Num2", "Num3", "Num4", "Num5", "Num6", "Num7", "Num8", "Num9", "Num0", "Num11", "Num12", "VolumeUp", "VolumeDown", "Mute", "ChannelUp", "ChannelDown", "SubTitle", "ClosedCaption", "Enter", "DOT", "Analog", "Teletext", "Exit", "Analog2", "*AD", "Digital", "Analog?", "BS", "CS", "BSCS", "Ddata", "PicOff", "Tv_Radio", "Theater", "SEN", "InternetWidgets", "InternetVideo", "Netflix", "SceneSelect", "Mode3D", "iManual", "Audio", "Wide", "Jump", "PAP", "MyEPG", "ProgramDescription", "WriteChapter", "TrackID", "TenKey", "AppliCast", "acTVila", "DeleteVideo", "PhotoFrame", "TvPause", "KeyPad", "Media", "SyncMenu", "Forward", "Play", "Rewind", "Prev", "Stop", "Next", "Rec", "Pause", "Eject", "FlashPlus", "FlashMinus", "TopMenu", "PopUpMenu", "RakurakuStart", "OneTouchTimeRec", "OneTouchView", "OneTouchRec", "OneTouchStop", "DUX", "FootballMode", "Social"]

remote.press_button('VolumeUp')

Wake on LAN

You can also use Bravtroller to turn on the TV. Mine responds to the standard WOL magic packet, which is what the below method is doing. Assuming the same setup as above:

remote.power_on
# => true

The caveat is that remote must be constructed while the TV is powered on. This is because:

1. It needs to communicate with the TV to construct the SOAP client. This is an artificial limitation. It could cache the service definition.
2. It need to determine the hardware address of the TV (necessary to construct the WOL packet). It does this by shelling out and calling arp. If the TV isn't in the ARP cache, it won't be able to determine the hardware address. Again -- an artificial limitation.