fauxmo 0.1.10

Emulated Belkin WeMo devices that work with the Amazon Echo

Fauxmo README

Python 3 module that emulates Belkin WeMo devices for use with the Amazon Echo.

• Documentation: fauxmo.readthedocs.org

Updates 20151231 by @n8henrie:

• see HISTORY.md

• All credit goes to @makermusings for the original version of Fauxmo!

  • Also thanks to @DoWhileGeek for commits towards python 3 compatibility

Summary

The Amazon Echo will allow you to control a limited number of home automation devices by voice. If you want to control device types that it doesn’t know about, or perform more sophisticated actions, the Echo doesn’t provide any native options. This code emulates the Belkin WeMo devices in software, allowing you to have it appear that any number of them are on your network and to link their on and off actions to any code you want.

Usage

Simple install: From PyPI

1. python3 -m pip install fauxmo

2. Make a config.json based on `config-sample.json <https://github.com/n8henrie/fauxmo/blob/master/config-sample.json>`__

3. fauxmo -c config.json [-v]

Install for development: From GitHub

1. git clone https://github.com/n8henrie/fauxmo.git

2. cd fauxmo

3. python3 -m venv venv

4. source venv/bin/activate

5. pip install -e .

6. cp config-sample.json config.json

7. Edit config.json

8. fauxmo [-v]

Set up the Echo

1. Have the Echo “find connected devices”

2. Test: “Alexa turn on [the kitchen light]”

Set fauxmo to run automatically in the background

systemd (e.g. Raspbian Jessie)

1. Recommended: add an unprivileged user to run Fauxmo: sudo useradd -r -s /bin/false fauxmo

   • NB: Fauxmo may require root privileges if you’re using ports below 1024

2. sudo cp extras/fauxmo.service /etc/systemd/system/fauxmo.service

3. Edit the paths in /etc/systemd/system/fauxmo.service

4. sudo systemctl enable fauxmo.service

5. sudo systemctl start fauxmo.service

launchd (OS X)

1. cp extras/com.n8henrie.fauxmo.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.n8henrie.fauxmo.plist

2. Edit the paths in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.n8henrie.fauxmo.plist

   • You can remove the StandardOutPath and StandardErrorPath sections if desired

3. launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.n8henrie.fauxmo.plist

4. launchctl start com.n8henrie.fauxmo

Once fauxmo.py is running, simply tell your Echo to “find connected devices” or open a browser to or your mobile device to the connected home settings page and Discover devices

Handlers

Fauxmo has an example REST handler class that reacts to on and off commands using the python-requests library as well as a handler for the Home Assistant Python API; these are examples of a multitude of ways that you could have the Echo trigger an action. In config-sample.json, you’ll see examples of:

• A GET request to a local server

• A POST request to the Home Assistant REST API

• Requests to Home Asssistant’s Python API

Configuration

I recommend that you copy and modify config-sample.json.

• FAUXMO: General Fauxmo settings

  • ip_address: Manually set the server’s IP address. Optional. Recommended value: auto

• DEVICES: List of devices that will employ RestApiHandler

  • port: Port that Echo will use connect to device, should be different for each device

  • handler: Dictionary for RestApiHandler configuration

    • on_cmd: URL that should be requested to turn device on

    • on_cmd: URL that should be requested to turn device off

    • method: GET or POST

    • headers: Optional dict for extra headers

    • json: Optional dict for JSON data to POST

  • description: What you want to call the device (how to activate by Echo)

• HOMEASSISTANT: Section for Home Assistant Python API

  • enable: Disable this section by omitting or setting to false

  • host: IP of host running Hass

  • port: Port for Hass access (default: 8123)

  • password: Hass API password

  • DEVICES: List of devices that will employ HassApiHandler

    • description: What you want to call the device (how to activate by Echo)

    • port: Port that Echo will use connect to device, should be different for each device

    • entity_id: Hass identifier used in API, one easy way to find is to curl and grep the REST API, eg curl http://IP_ADDRESS/api/bootstrap | grep entity_id

NB: unless you specify port numbers in the creation of your fauxmo objetcs, your virtual switch devices will use a different port every time you run fauxmo.py, which will make it hard for the Echo to find them. So you should plan to either leave the script running for long periods or choose fixed port numbers.

Troubleshooting / FAQ

• Increase logging verbosity with -v[vv]

Reading list:

• http://www.makermusings.com/2015/07/13/amazon-echo-and-home-automation

• http://www.makermusings.com/2015/07/18/virtual-wemo-code-for-amazon-echo

• http://hackaday.com/2015/07/16/how-to-make-amazon-echo-control-fake-wemo-devices

• https://developer.amazon.com/appsandservices/solutions/alexa/alexa-skills-kit

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Plug_and_Play

• http://www.makermusings.com/2015/07/19/home-automation-with-amazon-echo-apps-part-1

• http://www.makermusings.com/2015/08/22/home-automation-with-amazon-echo-apps-part-2

Changelog

Will not contain minor changes – feel free to look through git log for more detail.

0.1.8 :: 20160129

• Add the ability to manually specify the host IP address for cases when the auto detection isn’t working (https://github.com/n8henrie/fauxmo/issues/1)

• Deprecated the DEBUG setting in config.json. Just use -vvv from now on.

0.1.6 :: 20160105

• Fix for Linux not returning local IP

  • restored method I had removed from Maker Musings original / pre-fork version not knowing it would introduce a bug where Linux returned 127.0.1.1 as local IP address

0.1.4 :: 20150104

• Fix default verbosity bug introduced in 1.1.3

0.1.0 :: 20151231

• Continue to convert to python3 code

• Pulled in a few PRs by [@DoWhileGeek](https://github.com/DoWhileGeek) working towards python3 compatibility and improved devices naming with dictionary

• Renamed a fair number of classes

• Added kwargs to several class and function calls for clarity

• Renamed several variables for clarity

• Got rid of a few empty methods

• Import devices from config.json and include a sample

• Support POST, headers, and json data in the RestApiHandler

• Change old debug function to use logging module

• Got rid of some unused dependencies

• Moved license (MIT) info to LICENSE

• Added argparse for future console scripts entry point

• Added Home Assistant API handler class

• Use “string”.format() instead of percent

• Lots of other minor refactoring