webLightSwitch.js

This node application provides a web application that sends commands to an INSTEON PowerLinc Modem (PLM) (2413U for USB, 2413S for Serial) available from http://www.smarthome.com.

The node application "serialport" has been found to work with webLightSwitch.js to communicate with the PLM.

Installing npm

curl http://npmjs.org/install.sh | sh

"npm" is a package manager for node and used to install "serialport".

Install serialport

npm install serialport

Configuration

There are some customization parameters that you can change in webLightSwitch.js to make the program work in your environment.

API_KEY

var API_KEY = 'changeMe';

The API_KEY is an authentication token to provide a simplistic authenticated web request. The web requests will require inclusion of the query parameter apiKey=[value]. You should set the value to secret token.

SERIAL_PORT_NAME

var SERIAL_PORT_NAME = '/dev/ttyUSB0';

The serial port name should be set the value to communicate with the PLM. The USB PLM can use the FTDI drivers built in to modern Linux kernels. You should be able to plug in the USB PLM and the Linux kernel will create a device. The device will have a name like /dev/ttyUSB0. You may be able to use dmsg to see log messages describing the actions taken by the Linux kernel to create the device when the USB PLM is plug in to a USB port.

DEVICES

var DEVICES = {
  // add devices to control to this object
  // the index should be unique
  // the following are examples
  0: {name: 'Nightstand', address: [0x01, 0x02, 0x03]},
  1: {name: 'Porch', address: [0x04, 0x05, 0x06]}
};

The object DEVICES lists the INSTEON light devices that you can control. The INSTEON devices should be paired with the PLM before use with webLightSwitch.js. There are some example entries in the code to start from. The index of each device should be unique. If you do add more entries, ensure that each entry except the last end with a comma. The name attribute is the name of the switch displayed in the interface. The address attribute is the INSTEON three byte address of the device. You can typically find the address in hex printed on the device itself.

Running

To run the program:

node webLightSwitch.js

This will start a web server listening on all IP address on port 8888. It will also open the serial port to communicate with the PLM. Use a web browser to access the web interface at:

http://192.168.102.1:8888/?apiKey=changeMe

If all of the configuration is correct, you should see a screen listing each named device with on and off buttons next to each device name. You can click on or off and an associated INSTEON command will be sent from the PLM to the addressed device.