Smart Phone Controlled Home Automation with Raspberry Pi

Overview

This tutorial is all about Home Automation using Raspberry Pi & Bluetooth Low Energy. Home automation involves automating household environment equipment. To achieve that, we have created a smart bulb that can be controlled remotely using the smartphone app.

The aim of this project is to control different home appliances using smartphones at your home. This example is showing how to control a GPIO pin on a RaspberryPi remotely from a smartphone (or another BleuIO Dongle).

Requirements

For this example we will need:

A RaspberryPi
A BleuIO Dongle (https://www.bleuio.com/)
Our example python script (https://github.com/smart-sensor-devices-ab/bleuio_rpi_switch_example)
A way to connect to the GPIO Pin (Like a 5V Relay and a Lightbulb)

Hardware Setup & Connection

Here is the hardware setup circuit for Smart Phone Controlled Home Automation with Raspberry Pi. You can connect the relay to Raspberry Pi using the following circuit.

Beware: Always be very careful when experimenting with AC, electrical shock can result in serious injuries!

Instructions for bleuio_rpi_switch_example.py

Connect the BleuIO Dongle to your RaspberryPi.
Edit the variable ‘switch’ in the script to the GPIO pin you want to use. (You can use the command pinout to get a graphical view showing you the GPIO pins for the board)

Finally just run python script and and use your phone to connect to the BleuIO Dongle and send on/off messages to controll the GPIO!

Instructions for connecting to the BleuIO from mobile

Download a BLE scanning App that can connect and read/write to a device. (Like nRFConnect or BLEScanner)
Android, IOS

Look for the dongle, it will be advertising as ‘BleuIO’.

Connect to the BleuIO Dongle.

To enable BleuIO to recieve commands you must first write 0x01 to the Flow Control characteristic (UUID: 0783b03e-8535-b5a0-7140-a304d2495cb9)

Now you can write to the Server RX Data characteristic (UUID: 0783b03e-8535-b5a0-7140-a304d2495cba) to control the GPIO.
“SW=1” for ON
“SW=0” for OFF

Source Code/Python Script

Here is the python script for Smart Phone Controlled Home Automation with Raspberry Pi that receives the messages from smart phone app and helps control the light.

#!/usr/bin/python3

# Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),

# to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,

# and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

# The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

# THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,

# FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,

# WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

import time

import serial.tools.list_ports

import serial

import RPi.GPIO as io

switch = 7 # Edit this to suit your setup! (7 = GPIO 04), use command pinout to graphically show you the GPIO pins for the board

io.setmode(io.BOARD)

io.setup(switch, io.OUT)

master_array = []

index = 1

dongle_port = ""

print("\nWelcome to BleuIO RaspberryPi Switch Example!\n")

print("\nPlease insert dongle...")

try:

while len(master_array) == 0:

m_ports = serial.tools.list_ports.comports(include_links=False)

for port in m_ports:

if str(port.hwid).__contains__("VID:PID=2DCF"):

master = port.device + " " + port.hwid

if master.__contains__("VID:PID=2DCF:6002"):

print("Found dongle in port: %s" % port.device)

master_array.append(master)

dongle_port = port

break

for dongle in master_array:

print("\nConnecting to BleuIO @ %s\n" % dongle)

time.sleep(0.5)

dongle_conn = serial.Serial(

dongle_port.device,

115200,

timeout=1,

)

if not dongle_conn.is_open:

dongle_conn.open()

print("Starting Advertising...")

dongle_conn.write("AT+GAPDISCONNECTALL\rAT+DUAL\rAT+ADVSTART\rATI\r".encode())

read_tries = 0

dongle_resp = ""

while read_tries < 20:

dongle_resp = dongle_conn.readline().decode()

if "Not Advertising" in dongle_resp:

dongle_conn.write("AT+ADVSTART\r")

if b"Advertising\r\n" in dongle_resp.encode():

break

read_tries += 1

time.sleep(0.01)

if dongle_resp:

print("BleuIO is %s" % dongle_resp)

else:

print("ERROR! No response...")

exit()

print(

"Going into loop, waiting for signal to turn switch on/off...\n(Press Ctrl+C to abort)"

)

while True:

try:

dongle_resp = dongle_conn.readline().decode()

if "SW=0" in dongle_resp:

print("Turn Switch off!")

io.output(switch, io.LOW)

if "SW=1" in dongle_resp:

print("Turn Switch on!")

io.output(switch, io.HIGH)

except KeyboardInterrupt:

if dongle_conn.is_open:

dongle_conn.write("AT+GAPDISCONNECTALL\rAT+ADVSTOP\r".encode())

dongle_conn.close()

io.cleanup()

print("\nBye!")

exit()

except Exception as e:

print("(ERROR: %s)" % (e))

Testing Home Automation Project with Raspberry Pi

We have tested the script using the nRFConnect app from both IOS and Android phones to turn on/off the light bulb. Here is the output of this project.