fauxmo 0.3.2

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

Introduction

The Amazon Echo is able to control certain types of home automation devices by voice. Fauxmo provides emulated Belkin Wemo devices that the Echo can turn on and off by voice, locally, and with minimal lag time. Currently these Fauxmo devices can be configured to make requests to an HTTP server or to a Home Assistant instance via its Python API and only require a JSON config file for setup.

As of version 0.3.0, Fauxmo uses the new asyncio module and therefore requires Python >= 3.4*. Python >= 3.5 is encouraged, in case I decide to use the new async and await keywords in the future.

* Fauxmo 0.3.0 required Python >= 3.4.4, but Fauxmo 0.3.2 has restored compatibility with Python >= 3.4.0.

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]

Simple install of dev branch (from GitHub)

1. pip install [-e] git+https://github.com/n8henrie/fauxmo.git@dev

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. Open the Amazon Alexa webapp to the Smart Home page

2. With Fauxmo running, click “Discover devices” (or tell Alexa to “find connected devices”)

3. Ensure that your Fauxmo devices were discovered and appear with their names in the web interface

4. 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

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

• A PUT request to an Indigo server

• 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, POST, PUT, etc.

    • headers: Optional dict for extra headers

    • on_json / off_json: Optional dict of JSON data

    • on_data / off_data: Optional POST data

    • auth_type: basic or digest authentication, optional

    • user / password: for use with auth_type, also optional

  • 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

Troubleshooting / FAQ

• Increase logging verbosity with -v[vv]

• Ways to ensure your config is valid JSON:

  • python -m json.tool < config.json

  • Use jsonlint or one of numerous online tools

• How can I install an older / specific version of Fauxmo?

  • Install from a tag:

    • pip install git+git://github.com/n8henrie/fauxmo.git@v0.1.11

  • Install from a specific commit:

    • pip install git+git://github.com/n8henrie/fauxmo.git@d877c513ad45cbbbd77b1b83e7a2f03bf0004856

Installing Python 3.5 with pyenv

sudo install -o $(whoami) -g $(whoami) -d /opt/pyenv
git clone https://github.com/yyuu/pyenv /opt/pyenv
echo 'export PYENV_ROOT="/opt/pyenv"' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'export PATH="$PYENV_ROOT/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'eval "$(pyenv init -)"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
pyenv install 3.5.1

You can then install Fauxmo into Python 3.5 in a few ways, including:

# Install with pip
"$(pyenv root)"/versions/3.5.1/bin/python3.5 -m pip install fauxmo

# Run with included console script
fauxmo -c /path/to/config.json -vvv

# Show full path to fauxmo console script
pyenv which fauxmo

# I recommend using the full path for use in start scripts (e.g. systemd, cron)
"$(pyenv root)"/versions/3.5.1/bin/fauxmo -c /path/to/config.json -vvv

# Alternatively, this also works (after `pip install`)
"$(pyenv root)"/versions/3.5.1/bin/python3.5 -m fauxmo.cli -c config.json -vvv

Acknowledgements / Reading List

• Tremendous thanks to @makermusings for the original version of Fauxmo!

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

• 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.

0.3.2 :: 20160419

• Update SSDPServer to setsockopt to permit receiving multicast broadcasts

• sock kwarg to create_datagram_endpoint no longer necessary, restoring functionality to Python 3.4.0 - 3.4.3 (closes #6)

• make_udp_sock() no longer necessary, removed from fauxmo.utils

• Tox and Travis configs switched to use Python 3.4.2 instead of 3.4.4 (since 3.4.2 is the latest available in the default Raspbian Jessie repos)

0.3.1 :: 20160415

• Don’t decode the UDP multicast broadcasts (hopefully fixes #7)

  • They might not be from the Echo and might cause a UnicodeDecodeError

  • Just search the bytes instead

• Tests updated for this minor change

0.3.0 :: 20160409

• Fauxmo now uses asyncio and requires Python >= 3.4.4

• Extensive changes to codebase

• Handler classes renamed for PEP8 (capitalization)

• Moved some general purpose functions to fauxmo.utils module

• Both the UDP and TCP servers are now in fauxmo.protocols

• Added some rudimentary pytest tests including tox and Travis support

• Updated documentation on several classes

0.2.0 :: 20160324

• Add additional HTTP verbs and options to RestApiHandler and Indigo sample to config

  • NB: Breaking change: json config variable now needs to be either on_json or off_json

• Make RestApiHandler DRYer with functools.partialmethod

• Add SO_REUSEPORT to upnp.py to make life easier on OS X

0.1.11 :: 20160129

• Consolidate logger to __init__.py and import from there in other modules

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