BlinkStick 0.3.1

Python package to control BlinkStick USB devices.

BlinkStick Python interface to control devices connected to the computer.

What is BlinkStick? It’s a DIY USB RGB LED device. More info about it here:

http://www.blinkstick.com

Requirements

• Python

• BlinkStick pip module

Installation

Install blinkstick Python package with pip:

[sudo] pip install blinkstick

If websocket-client fails to install, please make sure you run the following command:

sudo apt-get install python-dev

Replace python-dev with python2.7-dev if you are installing on Raspberry Pi.

Description

Together with the Python module an additional command line tool is installed to control BlinkSticks. Use the following command to see all available options:

blinkstick -h

Usage: blinkstick [options]

Options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -i, --info            display BlinkStick info
  -s SERIAL, --serial=SERIAL
                        select device by serial number. If unspecified, action
                        will be performed on all BlinkSticks.
  --set-color=COLOR     set the color for the device. The value can either be
                        a named color, hex value, 'random' or 'off'.
                        CSS color names are defined
                        http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-color/ e.g. red, green,
                        blue.Specify color using hexadecimal color value e.g.
                        '#FF3366'
  --set-infoblock1=INFOBLOCK1
                        set the first info block for the device.
  --set-infoblock2=INFOBLOCK2
                        set the second info block for the device.
  --cpu-usage           Use BlinkStick to display CPU usage.
  --connect=ACCESS_CODE
                        Connect to blinkstick.com and control the device
                        remotely.
  -v, --verbose         Display debug output
  --add-udev-rule       Add udev rule to access BlinkSticks without root
                        permissions. Must be run as root.

Command Line Examples

Set random color all BlinkSticks:

blinkstick --set-color random

Set blue color for the blinkstick with serial number BS000001-1.0:

blinkstick --serial BS000001-1.0 --set-color blue

Connect to blinkstick.com with access code:

blinkstick --connect 9ad4ca313f41330cad6c219d

Use BlinkStick to display CPU usage:

blinkstick --cpu-usage

Code Examples

Code examples are available in the wiki:

https://github.com/arvydas/blinkstick-python/wiki

Permission problems

If the script returns with an error

Access denied (insufficient permissions)

You can either run the script with sudo, for example:

sudo blinkstick --set-color random

Or you can add a udev rule to allow any user to access the device without root permissions with this single command.

sudo blinkstick --add-udev-rule

There is also another equivalent command that does exactly the same thing:

echo "SUBSYSTEM==\"usb\", ATTR{idVendor}==\"20a0\", ATTR{idProduct}==\"41e5\", MODE:=\"0666\"" | sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/85-blinkstick.rules

Reboot computer after you have added the command and all users will have permissions to access the device without the need of root permissions.

Maintainers

• Arvydas Juskevicius - http://twitter.com/arvydev

• Rob Berwick - http://twitter.com/robberwick