PiDome Blog/News

Started with the JSON-RPC structure

This is not a large post but merely a status update.

Upcoming updates/changes in the server and client

A few days ago Marcel and i sat together over thinking some stuff happening with the server and the client. And came to the conclusion some things have to change, implemented and still need to be thought of.

Client connection authorization now available via the web interface

Today a next big little thing is available in the server, client connection authorizations. This means that when in the configuration file client authorization is turned on, you now not only can use the console to authorize clients, it is also available on the web interface.

Triggers added to the server with device based interactivity

Yesterday we could start including the trigger system in the PiDome server. With the trigger system it is possible to let actions occur based on device in- and output, plugin in- and output, system states and user presences. Currently only device output is supported in the nightly builds but all the previous options will eventually be included.

Progress update of the development

It has been a while since we posted an update about our progress. So here it is.

Server snapshot releases are available

On the 12th of October we started to release snapshot builds of the PiDome Server. This and the next snapshot releases will first focus on I²C devices and functionalities on the raspberry pi. We will go to other functionalities as mentioned on our todo list as soon as possible. All though some functionalities are implemented while we follow the I²C route because of dependencies.

First development release available next week

After being on the phone with Marcel this evening, we have decided to set a date to start with the development releases of the PiDome Server.

Java goes hard on the raspberry pi, so does PiDome

A couple of days ago Oracle has released Java 7 update 40. This release includes support for the Hard Float ABI for ARMv7 and also for ARMv6. Which is very, very nice, because the raspberry pi is an ARMv6 platform. This means java can now be run on the raspberry pi with better performance. In the previous releases of java, we needed a different version of the raspbian operating system on the raspberry pi. Which is the 'Soft Float' version of the default raspberry pi 'Hard Float' version of raspbian. All though performance was reasonable good on the soft float version, I took the challenge to go hard.

Progress update for controlling the NeoPixel led strip

Three days ago we finished our little NeoPixel led strip project, and we even got mentioned on the adafruit blog and twitter feed. And i must say, when looking at the statistics, we got over 280 youtube views, and over a hundred visitors to the website with more then 350 page views. Maybe not that astonishing, but for our project it's a lot, especially for the current state this project is in. Some people are contacting us with where the downloads are at, or how to connect the led strip to the Arduino and power it.

Little video showing PiDome controlling a led strip with an Arduino

As said earlier today we would post a video about the PiDome Server controlling the Adafruit Digital NeoPixel with 60 leds. Well Below is this little video. I have a couple of remarks though. English ain't my native language, and the colors are not really representing because we are filming this with a phone and the strip is not calibrated yet, so there is a little too much red. Enjoy!

I2C-LTS-LC device finished

You might wonder what this strange name stands for. Well it's quite simple actually. I2C-L(ux)T(emperature)S(ensor)-L(ighting)C(ontrol). And it's just that. (what's in a name :-) ) It has been made for the PiDome project, which is mainly build for the Raspberry Pi and is a system for automating all kinds of stuff in and around the house. This device reads out some sensors (temperature and light intensity). The light intensity is internally converted to Lux, which is an standard for measuring light intensity. These values are stored for the server to collect it. Besides that it is used to control (in this case) the Adafruit NeoPixel Digital LED-strip.

Long weekend of coding

The last 2 weeks some little progress has been made. We have squashed some bugs, made the server and client more stable with the current features, and the web service has become a LOT faster. Also our tasks lists at bitbucket (server and client) have become a lot smaller, more then 10 tasks/issues have been resolved. Because we are creating the software in our spare time, the progress we wanted is not as far as we hoped it to be at this moment. So Marcel and I have decided to come together, and code our ### off.

Jenkins, Netbeans and Ant follow up: "Missing libraries in manifest file"

Why unit testing is good to show implementation flaws, and even speeds up development

One of the main tasks we are having is updating and adding unit tests. These unit tests we implement do not only test complete sets of code, but from last week also simple functions. So when i test "What happens when i add an unknown device", the test nicely answers "do not know this device". This test runs a couple of different classes to come to this conclusion, so i thought, it works, i'm done. Yes i am, but no i was not.

How to build in Jenkins using Netbeans and Mercurial DCVS on bitbucket

As posted earlier, we use the combination as mentioned in the title to create an automated build system so we can do nightly,RC, and final build releases. But, To come this far I had some troubles to get Jenkins working with our project. Some stuff was just plain obvious, bot some others where not. In this post i can maybe help some to get your Netbeans -> Mercurial -> Jenkins combination working. To go further with this post, i assume you already have Mercurial (tortoisehg installation) working within Netbeans, and you are happy committing, pushing and pulling your files. I base this post on Netbeans 7.3.1, and tortoiseHG 2.9 (Including Mercurial 2.7). Today I updated Jenkins to version 1.529, so this is the version i'm showing in this post. Also the below instruction are partially compatible with the Netbeans Hudson plugin.