RCswitch

RCswitch is a plugin for smarthomeNG to send RC switch commands. With this plugin 433mhz remote controlled power plugs can be controlled from the smarthomeNG environment. The plugin supports two setups:

  • smarthomeNG runs on the same machine where the 433 MHz sender is connected to

  • smarthomeNG accesses a 433 MHz transmitter installed on a remote machine

Necessary Hardware

  • RaspberryPi or any other board having digital GPIO

  • 433 Mhz transmitter

  • 433 Mhz controlled power plug, e.g. Brennenstuhl RCS 1000 N

Connect the VCC of the 433Mhz transmitter to any 5V output pin of your board, the GND to a ground pin and the ATAD to any GPIO pin. In this example, pin 17 is used. I recommend also to connect a (long) cable to the ANT pin of the 433Mhz transmitter - this extends the range of the sender.

Requirements

The plugin depends on two 3rd party software packages:

  • wiringPi (on the machine where the 433 MHz transmitter is installed)

  • rcswitch-pi (on the machine where the 433 MHz transmitter is installed)

  • ssh and sshpass (only if remote access is needed)

Installation of wiringPi:

All steps have to be done on the machine where the on the machine where the 433 MHz transmitter is installed. In case not already done, update the system and install git:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install git-core

Then download wiringPi to /usr/local/bin/wiringPi

cd /usr/local/bin
sudo git clone git://git.drogon.net/wiringPi

and install it:

cd wiringPi
sudo ./build

Source: https://raspiprojekt.de/machen/basics/software/10-wiringpi.html?showall=&start=1

Installation of rcswitch-pi

All steps have to be done on the machine where the 433 MHz transmitter is installed. Download the sources into /usr/local/bin/rcswitch-pi:

cd /usr/local/bin
sudo git clone https://github.com/r10r/rcswitch-pi.git

Before building rcswitch-pi, the port has to be defined the code has to be changed slightly. Therefore edit the file send.cpp and the change the port to your needs and replace the command wiringPiSetup() to wiringPiSetupSys(). For editing the file:

cd rcswitch-pi
sudo nano send.cpp

In our example the file send.cpp has to look like follows:

int PIN = 17;
  char* systemCode = argv[1];
  int unitCode = atoi(argv[2]);
  int command = atoi(argv[3]);

  if (wiringPiSetupSys() == -1) return 1;
     printf("sending systemCode[%s] unitCode[%i] command[%i]\n", systemCode, unitCode, command);
     RCSwitch mySwitch = RCSwitch();
     mySwitch.enableTransmit(PIN);

  switch(command) {
      case 1:
          mySwitch.switchOn(systemCode, unitCode);
          break;
      case 0:
          mySwitch.switchOff(systemCode, unitCode);
          break;
      default:

Save the file (ctrl + o) and leave nano (ctrl+x) Now rcswitch pi can be compiled:

cd rcswitch-pi
make

source https://raspiprojekt.de/anleitungen/schaltungen/28-433-mhz-funksteckdosen-schalten.html?showall=&start=1

Send as non-root and testing

For a first basic test, write access to non-root users can be granted with the command:

gpio export 17 out

Now, with the send command the power plugs can be switched. Assuming, the power plug has code 11111 and address 2 (=B), the command to switch it on is:

./send 11111 2 1

If the power plug does not switch at this point, you need to figure out why before proceeding.

Because the setting of port 17, done with the command ‚gpio export 17 out‘ will be lost after reboot, it has to made persistent. Therefore, create file /usr/local/scripts/exportGPIO17

sudo mkdir /usr/local/scripts/
cd /usr/local/scripts/
sudo nano exportGPIO17

… and add following content:

#!/bin/sh  
echo "17" > /sys/class/gpio/export
echo "out" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio17/direction
chmod 666 /sys/class/gpio/gpio17/value
chmod 666 /sys/class/gpio/gpio17/direction

Save and close the file. Now the file has to be made executable with

sudo sudo chmod +x exportGPIO17

Last step is to ensure that the file is called during system boot. Therefore, the following line has to be added to /etc/rc.local, right before the exit 0 command:

/usr/local/scripts/exportGPIO17

Now even after reboot it should be possible to switch the power plugs with the rcswitch-pi ‚send‘ command.

Installation of ssh and sshpass

Optional step: In case smarthomeNG wants to access the 433 MHz transmitter on an remote host, the following steps have to be done on the machine where smarthomeNG runs:

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get install ssh sshpass

Also, ssh has to be installed on the machine where the 433 MHz transmitter is connected to:

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get install ssh

Configuration

plugin.yaml

Adding following lines to plugin.yaml in smarthomeNG will enable the rcswitch plugin:

rc:
    class_name: RCswitch
    class_path: plugins.rcswitch
    rcswitch_dir: {path of rc switch} # optional parameter. Default: /usr/local/bin/rcswitch-pi
    rcswitch_sendDuration: {minimum time in s between sending commands} # optional parameter. Default: 0.5
    rcswitch_host: {ip}# optional parameter. Default: empty
    rcswitch_user: {user at remote host}#  optional parameter. Default: empty
    rcswitch_password: {password for user at remote host}# optional parameter. Default: empty

Attributes

  • rcswitch_dir: has to point to the directory where the rcswitch-pi send command can be found.

  • rcswitch_sendDuration: intended for trouble shooting. Increase this parameter in case switching several power plugs at the same time does not work reliable. Background: In case several power plugs (with different codes / device numbers) shall be switched at the same time, there must be a short gap between sending the serval commands. Otherwise, the several send commands are executed in parallel, gernerating jam on the rc signal.

  • rcswitch_host: in case rcswitch is running on a remote machine, the IPv4 address or the HOSTNAME has to be specified. Note: a SSH server has to be installed on the remote machine.

  • rcswitch_user: user on the remote machine

  • rcswitch_password: password for the user on the remote machine

Example

rc:
    class_name: RCswitch
    class_path: plugins.rcswitch
    rcswitch_dir: /usr/local/bin/rcswitch-pi    # optional
    rcswitch_sendDuration: 0.5    # optional
    rcswitch_host: 192.168.0.4    # optional
    rcswitch_user: pi    # optional
    rcswitch_password: raspberry    # optional

items.yaml

Just add following attributes to the items which shall be connected with rcswitch:

rc_device: <number of device [1-5]>
rc_code: <code of device [00000 - 11111]>

Attributes

  • rc_device: Number or letter or the device. Valid values: 1,2,3,4,5,a,b,c,d,e,A,B,C,D,E

  • rc_code: the code of the device. Must be 5 binary digits.

Example:

Basement:

    LivingRoom:

        RCpowerPlug:

            TV:

                switch:
                    type: bool
                    knx_dpt: 1
                    knx_listen: 14/0/10
                    knx_send: 14/0/13
                    rc_code: 11111
                    rc_device: 2

Troubleshooting

If the switch does not work, but you are sure that the installation was done properly, make sure that the user (normally) smarthome is part of the group gpio.

If not, it is easy to do this.

sudo usermod -aG gpio smarthome
sudo reboot

Changelog

v0.1

  • initial version. Supports sending on local machine

v0.2

  • support of remote transmitter

  • more detailed failure report in case of misconfiguration

  • usage of subprocess module instead of the os module

  • support of literal device numbers

v0.3

  • add import os at the init

v1.2.0.4

  • add hostname support

Further information

For discussion see https://knx-user-forum.de/forum/supportforen/smarthome-py/39094-logic-und-howto-für-433mhz-steckdosen