Control Hyperion through a small web server

Looked all over for a way to control Hyperion through a web call, primarily so I could control from WebCore in SmartThings. It can't send raw TCP. Could find anything, so rolled my own. Thought I'd share in case in helps anyone else.

1) Add a couple python modules on your Raspi that runs hyperion.

pip install bottle
pip install bottledaemon

2) The python script that runs the web server and add endpoints for color and effects:

from bottledaemon import daemon_run
from bottle import route, run, template
import subprocess

@route('/color/<colorid>')
def index(colorid):
subprocess.check_output(['/usr/bin/hyperion-remote', '--color', colorid])
return "done"

@route('/effect/<effectname>')
def index(effectname):
subprocess.check_output(['/usr/bin/hyperion-remote', '--effect', effectname])
return "done"

@route('/clearall')
def index():
subprocess.check_output(['/usr/bin/hyperion-remote', '--clearall'])
return "done"

if __name__ == "__main__":
daemon_run(host="0.0.0.0", port="8080")

3) Start the python script using nohup so you can close your connection and it keep running.

nohup /usr/bin/python /home/pi/Documents/hyperionweb.py start

4) make a standard http request to control.

http://192.168.2.71:8080/effect/Cold%20mood%20blobs
http://192.168.2.71:8080/color/ff0000
http://192.168.2.71:8080/clearall

Hopefully this is useful to someone. And hopefully I didn't overlook something completely obvious and do it the hard way.

milhouse

Can I insert a code block so the python code isn't reformatted? It lost all the indents, and python really cares about that.

You got it. I use a random expression so it's one of several effects. Make a web request, GET method, type JSON, no header or authorization. Obviously this is all inside my LAN.

Make a GET request to {"http://192.168.2.71:8080/effect/" + random("Cold%20mood%20blobs","Full%20color%20mood%20blobs","Warm%20mood%20blobs","Rainbow%20swirl")} with type JSON;

Sorry for the delayed reply. Travelling this week.

You should not need to change the IP addresss 0.0.0.0. That just lets it accept on any network connect. If you had multiple, you could specift which address it should listen on. Port doesn't matter - you should be able to set any non-conflicting port for it to listen on (the 8080 in my code snippet). Obviosuly, you'd change the URLs to the same port.

Set up port forwarding on your router for that port so an external call to your (external) IP address would go to your pi.

Most ISPs don't actually change your IP address very often - my usually lasts for months without change. But if it's a problem look into a dynamic dns service so you could call by address instead of IP.

Yes, you could have a virtual switch available to Alexa. Webcore could respond to the switch changes to off trigger, make a web call to the clearall endpoint, and turn the virtual switch back on (so it's ready agin for the turn off). Or a momentary switch.

Like you said - could be a lot of virtual switches if you wanted finer control. And you'd have to pay attention to priorities in hyperion, in case you wanted to override the HDMI signlat with an effect for example.

I use the random effect (of my favorite effects) so it's just part of my outdoor lighting routines. On at sunset -30, off at 11:00pm.

If you are sure the script is actually running (e.g. does it work from the Pi itself through a browser or curl), then I can only assume you are right and it's the orbi. I've never seen a consumer grade router that blocks anything on the LAN side, though.

Should only need port forwarding if you want things to be accessible from outside your home network.

In the python script, did you leave the 0.0.0.0 address or change it to the static IP? If you leave at 0.0.0.0 then it should accept connections on all IPs (like if the pi is on wireless and wired networks).

Does ifconfig show you the IP address you think you have assigned?

I wonder if the script is not starting up correctly because of some leftover bottle files from a previous crash. That would be files that start with bottle* AND a file that seems to include the machine name.
pi@Pi-Attic:~ $ ls
bottle.log Documents Pictures Videos
bottle.pid Downloads Public
bottle.pid.lock Music python_games
Desktop Pi-Attic-76f9b8c0.517-158751035 Templates

In my shell script that starts the webserver, I clean up any potential leftovers first, then start the hyperion web server.

#!/bin/sh
rm bottle* -f
rm Pi-Attic* -f
nohup /usr/bin/python /home/pi/Documents/hyperionweb.py start

Give that a try - stop the bottle web server ("hyperionweb.py stop"), clean up the files above, then start again. Give it a minute to get running, then try calling it.

Well, that's something I never quite figured out how to do. I don't have the webserver script run on startup - never managed to get it to work right. I manually run my shell script (the 4 line script above, rm + nohup python lines) every time I reboot - only every couple of months, so not very labor intensive. If you are going to reboot regularly you'd probably want to get it to start automatically. Why a regular reboot at all? My pi runs for months without issue. The file cleanup I do is simply because the bottle webserver doesn't run properly if I don't delete them first - has nothing to do with actually needing a regular restart.

If it ran on startup, then you'd probably skip the nohup part since it would be independent of a logged in user. But I have no idea where the bottle files would go. Can't remember exactly what problems I had trying to get it to run on boot. If you figure out how to do it, let me know please!

Startup order actually shouldn't matter - the webserver doesn't actually interface directly with hyperion, it just runs a command line when called.

Just going to make a stab in the dark, based on this error line:
AssertionError: View function mapping is overwriting an existing endpoint function: index

I wonder if flask doesn't like the same variable name used more than once. Maybe change each def to be something different?
@route('/color/<colorid>')
def indexc(colorid):
subprocess.check_output(['/usr/bin/hyperion-remote', '--color', colorid])
return "done"
@route('/effect/<effectname>')
def indexe(effectname):
subprocess.check_output(['/usr/bin/hyperion-remote', '--effect', effectname])
return "done"
@route('/clearall')
def indexclear():
subprocess.check_output(['/usr/bin/hyperion-remote', '--clearall'])
return "done"