As you all know in the new version of Homebridge, the plugin architecture is changed. In new Homebridge, plugins are published through NPM with name starts with homebridge-. Users can install the plugin using NPM.
My previous example of Particle and Homebridge uses old plugin architecture. I have been thinking for a long time to upgrade my previous plugin to the new architecture. But because of many reasons it is delayed. Luckily last week I was able to complete and publish to NPM.
You can install it using NPM like all other modules, you can install using:
npm install -g homebridge-particle.
In this version, I have made some changes from the older version. Mainly the plugin is now a Homebridge Platform. Also in this version accessories are defined in config.json file. The plugin loads the accessories from the config.json file and create accessory dynamically. A sample configuration file is like:
{
"bridge": {
"name": "Homebridge",
"username": "CC:22:3D:E3:CE:39",
"port": 51826,
"pin": "031-45-154"
},
"description": "This is an example configuration file with one Particle platform and 3 accessories, two lights and a temperature sensor. You should replace the access token and device id placeholder with your access token and device id",
"platforms": [
{
"platform": "Particle",
"name": "Particle Devices",
"access_token": "<<access token>>",
"cloudurl": "https://api.spark.io/v1/devices/",
"devices": [
{
"accessory": "BedroomLight",
"name": "Bedroom Light",
"deviceid": "<<device id>>",
"type": "LIGHT",
"function_name": "onoff",
"args": "0={STATE}"
},
{
"accessory": "KitchenLight",
"name": "Kitchen Light",
"deviceid": "<<device id>>",
"type": "LIGHT",
"function_name": "onoff",
"args": "1={STATE}"
},
{
"accessory": "KitchenTemperature",
"name": "Kitchen Temperature",
"deviceid": "<<device id>>",
"type": "SENSOR",
"sensorType": "temperature",
"key": "temperature",
"event_name": "tvalue"
}
]
}
]
}
As you can see from the above example this config.json file defines 3 accessories. 2 Lights and one Temperature Sensor. The access_token defines the Particle Access Token and cloudurl defines the base Particle API url. If you are using the Particle Cloud, then the value of cloudurl should be https://api.spark.io/v1/devices/. If you are using local cloud, then replace with your sensor address.
The devices array contains all the accessories. You can see the accessory object defines following string objects:
- accessory - Accessory name, this is the name of the accessory.
- name - Display name, this is the name to be displayed on the HomeKit app.
- deviceid - Device ID of the Particle Device (Core, Photon or Electron). It is defined in accessory so that you can use different Particle Devices for different accessory.
- type - Type of the accessoy. As of now, the plugin supports 2 type, LIGHT and SENSOR. Type LIGHT represents a light, such as bedroom light, kitchen light, living room light, etc... Type SENSOR represents sensor accessory such as Temperature sensor, Humidity sensor, Light sensor, etc...
- sensorType - Optional Sensor Type, this string object is optional. This is only valid when the accessory type is SENSOR. As of now the plugin supports 3 types of sensors, Temperature Sensor, Humidity Sensor and Light Sensor. More sensor will be supports in future versions.
- event_name - The name of the event to listen for sensor value update. This is only valid if the accessory type is SENSOR. If the accessory is a type of SENSOR, then the plugin listens for events published from Particle Device (using
Particle.publish). The device firmware should publish the sensor values in the formatkey=value. The key identifies the sensor value. For a temperature sensor the key should be temperature. For a humidity sensor the key should be humidity. For light sensor it should be light. - key - Name of the key, this is not used in this version of the plugin. This is included for future purpose.