Requirements

• Philips Hue bridge and at least one light.

• At least one Amazon Dash Button.

• A computer capable of running Node.js.

• A forecast.io API key.

Installation

You can find a video walktough of the setup procedure here.

Install the system dependencies:

The primary dependencies are Node.js, libpcap, and git. Configuration will depend on your system.

For Raspbian (Raspberry Pi - tested on Jessie):

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo apt-get install git build-essential libpcap-dev -y
wget http://node-arm.herokuapp.com/node_latest_armhf.deb
dpkg -i node_latest_armhf.deb
rm node_latest_armhf.deb

Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/DrexelECE/node-hue-weather.git

Install the node dependencies:

cd node-hue-weather
npm i

Setup

Configure your Philips Hue Lights:

Use the instructions that came with your Philips Hue system to get this set up.

Configure the Amazon Dash button:

Download the Amazon Shopping smartphone app and connect the button to your WiFi network. Do not complete the setup process! Exit the app when you are asked to select a product.

Find and Add a Dash Button:

From the /node-hue-weather folder:

node findDash

Press the button on the Dash Button when prompted. You may have to do this a few times depending on how many devices are submitting arp requests on your network. It also seems that you have to wait about 30 seconds between button presses. Otherwise the button won't respond. Note that the Dash Button's MAC address should appear twice in succession.

When you are confident you have found the correct MAC address for your Dash Button, ctrl-C to exit the findDash program and copy the MAC address. Then,

node addDash XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

replacing the 'XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX' with the MAC address you want to add. You can add multiple Dash buttons by repeating this process.

Find and Add a Philips Hue Bridge:

node findHue

If a Hue bridge is found on the local network, its IP will automatically be added to the configuration file. Note that the first Hue bridge found will be added.

Alternatively, you can add the IP of the bridge via:

node addToProperties philips_hue_bridge_ip XXX.XXX.X.XXX

where the Xs are replaced by the IP address of the bridge.

Add the forecast.io API key:

node addForecastApi APIKEY

Add your location:

node addLocation lat long

For instance, for Philadelphia, USA, one might use:

node addLocation 39.9540 -75.1880

Note that south latitudes and west longitudes should be negative.

Add properties manually:

Alternatively, you can add some or all of the properties manually. This is useful if one of the above processes fails or you already know some of the relevant information. There are two ways to do this: (1) edit the properties.json file or (2) use the addToProperties program.

addToProperties is used as such:

node addToProperties key value

where valid keys are 'location', 'philips_hue_bridge_ip', 'forecast_io_api_key', and 'amazon_dash_button', all without quotes. Enter the value without quotes. An example is:

node addToProperties philips_hue_bridge_ip 192.168.1.109

Running

Run the app:

node app

The app will listen for button presses and flash the lights in sequence upon a successful button press.

Adding the flag '-test' will run the program offline, randomly generating weather data for demonstration/testing purposes:

node app -test

Contributing

Unless you're very deliberately contributing something for the properties file, please run git update-index --assume-unchanged properties.json

This will prevent git from showing your local properties in git status and git diff, and thus make it much harder for you to accidentally commit your local configurations. Read more here.