geckolib 0.4.0

A library to interface with Gecko Alliance products using in.touch2

GeckoLib

Library to interface with Gecko Alliance spa pack systems via in.touch2

Written from the ground up using info gleaned from Wireshark captures to sniff the conversation between the iOS app and the inTouch2 home transmitter.

Designed to be used by home automation systems such as Home Assistant or openHAB

This library is currently in Alpha, meaning that there may be large changes in library shape, class definitions, behaviours etc as I client it in my ongoing Home Assistant integration. This has now been released, in preview, and can be found at https://github.com/gazoodle/gecko-home-assistant, or from HACS by adding a new integration and seaching for Gecko

Async support

The core of the library has been rewritten to be async based. This is for several reasons;

1. Home Assistant, my main client of the library prefers this pattern. I'd like to get away from the "can't connect", "not supported" pattern and have the spa connect immediately to the facade (which will do the handshake to the actual spa asynchronously so that connection state can be shown in the UI if required). This will improve HA startup performance and allow me to control the retry connection pattern in the library without having to burden the HA integration with this (HA doesn't like protocol in integrations)
2. I've done loads of multi-threaded programming in my life and think I'm familiar with almost all kinds of problems this brings, but ... why bother when this isn't necessary
3. While trying to implement a feature that supports occasionally disconnected spas without generating reams of logging, I realized that I was fighting against the previous architecture, so it's time to refactor that.
4. Every day is a school day. I've not seriously explored Python's async support :-)

Currently this isn't a breaking change, the sync library still has the functionality that it always had (albeit with some major refactoring). There is a completely parallel API and class set to support async clients.

I'll update the HA integration to use the async version as it's much faster to start and it has more functionality. I know there are other automation clients using this library, so the sync API and classes will stay here for a while until those clients have had a chance to use the new async code, but I will deprecate them at some point, probably when the library goes to v1.0.0

Installation

This library is hosted on PyPI and can be installed with the following command-line

pip install geckolib

GeckoShell usage

Once the library is installed, you should be able to start a Python interpreter session by using the command python3, then executing the following commands

>>> from geckolib import GeckoShell
>>> GeckoShell.run()


    <Disclaimer>
    :
    <snip/>
    :
    </Disclaimer>

Starting discovery process...Found 1 spas
Connecting to spa `Spa` at 10.1.2.3 ... connected!
Heater: Temperature 39.0°C, SetPoint 39.0°C, Operation Idle
Pump 1: OFF
Pump 2: OFF
Blower: OFF
Lights: OFF
WaterCare: Standard
Welcome to the Gecko shell. Type help or ? to list commands.

Spa$

This ought to find your spa on your local network. If it doesn't, please open an issue, you can exercise some of your spa features using the commands below

Spa$ P1 HI
Spa$ P1 OFF

Spa$ LI ON
Spa$ LI OFF

You can get help on the GeckoShell module

Spa$ help

Documented commands (type help <topic>):
========================================
BL  P2      discover  get      list    refresh   snapshot  watercare
LI  about   download  help     live    set       state
P1  config  exit      license  manage  setpoint  version

Spa$ help watercare
Set the active watercare mode to one of ['Away From Home', 'Standard', 'Energy Saving', 'Super Energy Saving', 'Weekender'] : WATERCARE <mode>
Spa$ watercare Weekender

If you have more than one spa/device detected, you can use the list and manage commands

Starting discovery process...Found 2 spas
Welcome to the Gecko shell. Type help or ? to list commands.

(Gecko) list
1. Spa
2. Dummy Spa
(Gecko) manage 1
Connecting to spa `Spa` at 10.1.2.3 ... connected!
Heater: Temperature 39.0°C, SetPoint 39.0°C, Operation Idle
P1: OFF
P2: OFF
BL: OFF
LI: OFF
WaterCare: Standard
Spa$

If you want to get some diagnostics you can enable file logging at the start of the session

>>> from geckolib import GeckoShell
>>> GeckoShell.run(["logfile client.log"])

  :
  :

or it can be used later after you've connected to your spa with the logfile command

Spa$ logfile client.log

The file client.log will contain diagnostic information that may be useful for tracking down issues

If you want to start the client and point it at a specific IP address (maybe you have your SPA on a different subnet), you can issue the discovery command as part of the launch parameters

>>> from geckolib import GeckoShell
>>> GeckoShell.run(["logfile client.log", "discover 192.168.1.2"])

  :
  :

Simulator Usage

It's best if you download the repo for using the simulator. Once you've done that, open a terminal to your repo test folder (./tests)

python3 simulator.py

You should see a prompt

Welcome to the Gecko simulator. Type help or ? to list commands.

(GeckoSim)

You should load the default snapshot at this point

(GeckoSim) load snapshots/default.snapshot
(GeckoSim)

Now you can run the client program, or indeed your iOS or Android app and then attempt to connect to the simulator. At present it only supports loading another snapshot to change the state. If the changes are too great, for example, if you've loaded a completly different spa then the iOS and Android apps may be confused.

Best to click on the account icon and then reselect the test spa to get it to reconnect from the start.

Also, at present the simulator doesn't respond to any commands issued from the iOS and Android applications.

Async API Usage

""" Sample client demonstrating async use of geckolib """

import asyncio
import logging

from context import GeckoAsyncFacade

# Replace with your own UUID, see https://www.uuidgenerator.net/>
CLIENT_ID = "a2d936db-4e95-4e4d-82bc-b4225fa99739"
# Replace with your spa IP address if on a sub-net
SPA_ADDRESS = None


async def main():

    # Create a facade to locate spas on the network first, optionally using
    # the specified spa address
    print("Finding spas on your network")
    spa = None
    async with GeckoAsyncFacade(CLIENT_ID, spa_address=SPA_ADDRESS) as facade:
        await facade.ready()
        if facade.locator.spas is not None:
            spa = facade.locator.spas[0]

    # Check that we found a spa
    if spa is None:
        print("No spas found on your network")
        return

    print(f"Connecting to {spa} on {spa.destination}")
    # Now connect to the facade using the information from the descriptor
    async with GeckoAsyncFacade(
        CLIENT_ID,
        spa_address=spa.ipaddress,
        spa_identifier=spa.identifier_as_string,
    ) as facade:
        # Hang around waiting for the facade to connect. You wouldn't normally
        # do it like this, but this is a simple example
        await facade.ready()

        # Print some information out
        print(facade.water_heater)

        print("Turning pump 1 on")
        await facade.pumps[0].async_set_mode("HI")

        await asyncio.sleep(5)

        print("Turning pump 1 off")
        await facade.pumps[0].async_set_mode("OFF")

        await asyncio.sleep(5)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    # Install logging
    stream_logger = logging.StreamHandler()
    stream_logger.setLevel(logging.DEBUG)
    stream_logger.setFormatter(
        logging.Formatter("%(asctime)s> %(levelname)s %(message)s")
    )
    logging.getLogger().addHandler(stream_logger)
    logging.getLogger().setLevel(logging.WARNING)

    asyncio.run(main())

Complete sample

There is also a complete async sample which can be found in the repo under the /sample folder. This can be run using python3 complete.py

Sync API Usage

WARNING Sync functionality will be removed in a future release

This first example is a trivial one to show how to minimally client this library

""" Sample client demonstrating use of geckolib """

import time

from geckolib import GeckoLocator

# Replace with your own UUID, see https://www.uuidgenerator.net/>
CLIENT_ID = "a2d936db-4e95-4e4d-82bc-b4225fa99739"

print("Locating spas on your network")
with GeckoLocator(CLIENT_ID) as locator:

    print(f"Connecting to first spa {locator.spas[0]}")
    with locator.spas[0].get_facade() as facade:

        print(facade.water_heater)

        print("Turning pump 1 on")
        facade.pumps[0].set_mode('HI')

        time.sleep(5)

        print("Turning pump 1 off")
        facade.pumps[0].set_mode('OFF')
        time.sleep(2)

An example to just read the state of various items, see the files in ./automation folder for properties of these items for getting state and controlling them

""" Sample client demonstrating use of geckolib """

from context import GeckoLocator

# Replace with your own UUID, see https://www.uuidgenerator.net/>
CLIENT_ID = "a2d936db-4e95-4e4d-82bc-b4225fa99739"

print("Locating spas on your network")
with GeckoLocator(CLIENT_ID) as locator:

    print(f"Connecting to first spa {locator.spas[0]}")
    with locator.spas[0].get_facade() as facade:

        # Get state of water heater
        print(facade.water_heater)

        # Get state of the pumps
        for pump in facade.pumps:
            print(pump)

        # Check that pump 1 is off
        if facade.pumps[0].mode == "OFF":
            print("Pump 1 is off!")

        # Print all the automatable devices
        print("** All automation devices **")
        for device in facade.all_automation_devices:
            print(device)

A more complex example

""" Real world sample client demonstrating use of geckolib

Python async suffers like many interpreted languages with function
colour see:

http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2015/02/01/what-color-is-your-function/

To avoid this, the geckolib is written using synchronous functions and
methodologies, but using threading to manage the I/O portions. Where
appropriate, state flags are exposed so that you can use async clients
to ensure that your host is still responsive and I don't have to maintain
two versions of the library ... ugh!"""

import time

from geckolib import GeckoLocator

# Replace with your own UUID, see https://www.uuidgenerator.net/>
CLIENT_ID = "a2d936db-4e95-4e4d-82bc-b4225fa99739"

# First up, lets locate all the spas on your network
print("Locating spas on your network ", end="", flush=True)
locator = GeckoLocator(CLIENT_ID)
locator.start_discovery()

# We can perform other operations while this is progressing, like output a dot
while not locator.has_had_enough_time:
    # Could also be `await asyncio.sleep(1)`
    locator.wait(1)
    print(".", end="", flush=True)

locator.complete()

# Report how many we've found
print(f" found {len(locator.spas)} spas")

if len(locator.spas) == 0:
    raise RuntimeError("Cannot continue as there were no spas detected")

# Grasp info about your spa, this is often the integration phase in your
# automation system, sometimes you can store binary identifiers, sometimes
# you can't ...
persistent_spa_identifier = locator.spas[0].identifier_as_string
print(f"Using spa identifier {persistent_spa_identifier}")

# Some time later, when we want to start the automation system but don't
# want to choose the spa again, we do something like this ...
facade = GeckoLocator.find_spa(CLIENT_ID, persistent_spa_identifier).get_facade(False)

# Now we have a facade, wait for it to be connected
print(f"Connecting to {facade.name} ", end="", flush=True)
while not facade.is_connected:
    # Could also be `await asyncio.sleep(1)`
    facade.wait(1)
    print(".", end="", flush=True)
print(" connected")

# Do some things with the facade
print(f"Water heater : {facade.water_heater}")


def pump_1_change(sender, old_value, new_value):
    print(f"Pump 1 changed from {old_value} to {new_value}")


# Watch pump 1 for changes and report on them
facade.pumps[0].watch(pump_1_change)

print("Turn pump 1 on")
facade.pumps[0].set_mode('HI')

time.sleep(5)

print("Turning pump 1 off")
facade.pumps[0].set_mode('OFF')

time.sleep(2)
facade.complete()

Acknowledgements

• Inspired by https://github.com/chicago6061/in.touch2.
• Thanks to the folk at Gecko for building this system as a local device rather than mandating a cloud solution.
• Wireshark is an awesome tool for sniffing out what is going on on your network. Take a look one day, you might be horrified :-)

License

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html

Todo

• Reminders
• Spa state (errors)
• Error handling (ongoing)
• Pythonize where possible
• APIs to support integration into automation systems (Ongoing)
  • Warnings/Errors
  • Reminders
  • Diagnostics
• More unit tests
• Handle other device types such as Waterfall
• Handle inMix for lighting control
• Add API documentation
• RF signal strength for EN(Home) -> CO(Spa)
• Merge reminders branch from @kalinrow
• List property for User demands in pack classes
• List property for errors in pack classes
• Tidy up support files. One class per file
• Full sweep for typing hints - Ongoing
• Add sensor for reminders
• Add sensor for errors
• Add switch for winterizing
• Add sensor for RF signal strength
• Add ability to set hours so we can implement a crude clock sync mechanism
• Think about a way to provide access to behaviour refresh frequencies so that it can be customised
• Look into getting shell & simulator using async API so that there are no internal dependencies on the sync code any longer
• Move to pytest unit test framework
• Use snapshots to generate some specific tests
• Build some documentation
• Add coverage to GitHub package workflow
• There is a lock issue when a command is being retried as the protocol lock is busy and the CUI won't exit until the timeout has been reached (this can be reproduced by making the simulator stop responding to watercare requests)

Done/Fixed in 0.4.0

• Supports both sync and async clients. The sync clients ought to be backward compatible but there has been a huge chunk of refactoring to get the async built and even though I've run all the tests and clients, it's possible there are issues
• Sensor for connection status is available early in facade lifetime
• Ping sensor available after spa begins connection sequence
• Re-added readline library to simulator as it was doing auto-complete for snapshot loading and was useful when testing, but added it inside a try/catch block so it won't upset Windows clients
• Manage ping failure and RF errors with retry mechanism
• Watercare regular refresh from facade
• Create Spa manager class to run the connection logic so that clients get cleanup opportunity when reconnections are needed
• Handle disconnected spas, ping failures, RF errors and so on
• Simulator can get/set accessors for experimentation

Done/Fixed in 0.3.24

• Fix error found by Github workflow
• Added extra logging into to find out more about issue #28
• Removed readline library as it isn't supported on Windows and it wasn't really doing anything
• Added some extra doc for issue #18
• Added RFERR handler to client and simulator to start investigations
• Handle Watercare index out of range
• Accessors can now deal with Time type entries
• Added diag.py to aid tracking issue#27
• Added eco mode control to facade and shell
• Temperature accessor in new generator as it doesn't need to be handled at runtime
• Removed decorators.py

Done/Fixed in 0.3.23

• Demoted some INFO logging to DEBUG to reduce HA log file clutter

Done/Fixed in 0.3.22

• Increase connection timeout to help with laggy tubs and busy networks
• Watercare setting updated locally rather than wait for tub response to improve HA UI responsiveness
• Fast locator for static IP

Done/Fixed in 0.3.21

• Demoted some benign debugging data that clutters log files
• Replaced "config" and "live" with "accessors" commands in shell to reduce direct access to XML
• Added "monitor" command in shell to give a live view of changes from other sources e.g. control panel or app
• Removed runtime reliance on SpaPackStruct.xml, this is replaced by the python code in driver/pack/*
• Accessor can handle byte, word, bool value updates if provided as a string (i.e. GeckoShell set command)

Done/Fixed in 0.3.20

• Merge changes for variable speed pumps. Thanks https://github.com/los93sol
• Prevent new "pump" command showing in help UI

Done/Fixed in 0.3.19

• Ensure STATP changes are cleared after processing rather than accumulating for-all-time! Thanks https://github.com/maegibbons

Done/Fixed in 0.3.18

• Added some more snapshots
• Attempt to handle spas that return unsupported config/log versions
• Add ability to provide an IP address to the library

Done/Fixed in 0.3.17

• Attempt to fix urllib3 requirement in pip install. It was in the wrong place

Done/Fixed in 0.3.16

• More robust to missed packets during spa connection
• Mechanism to access raw pack values from the facade, e.g. facade.pumps[0].state_sensor.accessor.raw_value
• Add API to facade to get device by key, e.g. facade.get_device("P1") will return the first pump.
• Add property to facade to get all device keys; facade.devices

Done/Fixed in 0.3.15

• Trying out Github publish actions

Done/Fixed in 0.3.14

• Added SmartWinterMode sensors
• Added Filter Clean/Purge sensors

Done/Fixed in 0.3.13

• Move MrSteam handling on so that we can get a proper structure dump

Done/Fixed in 0.3.12

• UnicodeEncodeError: 'latin-1' codec can't encode character '\u0101' in position 108: ordinal not in range(256)
• Massive refactor of protocol handlers to make building a simulator easier
• Changes to allow library to be more suitable for async clients
• Ping frequency returned to 15 seconds
• Simulator added to allow investigation using snapshots sent in from other folk
• Heating state fixed to show heating/cooling as appropriate
• Issue #1 Waterfall now recognised and responding to button press
• Issue #3 P1 Twice - deduped the device list
• Issue #8 The library should be able to provide temp and heater usage stats now
• Issue #9 Water Heater current operation should now be working correctly

Done/Fixed in 0.3.11

• Ping frequency set to 45 seconds
• Reset method to GeckoReponse class to handle retries in GeckoGetStatus class
• Add mechanism to locate a spa in the locator class based on it's identifier
• Set worker threads to daemon mode
• Re-structure for better lifetime management and easier clienting
• Merged PR from dukey32123 supplying waterfall constants ... need to find keypad code too.
• flake8 and black formatting and tidy-up
• Observable added to propagate change notification so we can be cliented as a local-push integration in Home Assistant
• Moved all the functionality out of client.py and put it into GeckoShell class

Done/Fixed in 0.3.10

• Try upload to PiPY

Done/Fixed in 0.3.9

• Message encoding -> latin1 from utf-8 to avoid mangling raw bytes. This fixes the turning pump 2 off when turning pump 1 on using set UdP2=HI then set UdP1=HI. There must be a better way to do this without switching between strings and bytes ...
• Major source restructure to get ready for PyPI package
• Moved to pyproject.toml/setup.cfg for modern Python library
• Updated README.md with better examples

Done/Fixed in 0.3.8

• Restructure code to be in line with Python library style
• Code auto formatted with Black
• Most pylint warnings/issues fixed
• Unit tests added for GeckoStructAccessor
• Watercare handled
• Client.py program restructured to use python Cmd class

Done/Fixed in 0.3.7

• Deal with unhandled devices

Done/Fixed in 0.3.6

• Limit buttons & devices to those available based on configuration (i.e. don't show P3 if not installed)
• Dump state block & intro sequence so we can build a simulator
• Deal with temp decorators that might not be present on different modules
• Automation interface added
• Timeout retry of command to make it more robust on busy networks

Version

Using Semantic versioning https://semver.org/