(3 items)
A previous note about Philips Hue bulbs got me thinking that the API exposed by the bridge might be used to warn if the house lights are left on too late at night, or even if they get turned on at unexpected times - potentially for security.
I put together a simple program that periodically checks the status of known Hue bulbs late at night. If any bulbs are discovered to be powered on during such times then an email notification is sent. It runs as a systemd service on a Raspberry Pi.
I have recently posted about CENode and how it might be used in IoT systems.
Since CENode is partially designed to communicate directly with humans (particularly those out and about or “in the field”) it makes sense for inputs and queries to be provided via voice in addition to or instead of a text interface. Whilst this has been explored in the browser (including in the previous Philips Hue control demo), it made sense to also try to leverage the Alexa voice service to interact with a CENode instance.
In a previous note I discussed CENode and briefly mentioned its potential for use in interacting with the Internet of Things. I thought I’d add a practical example of how it might be used for this and for ’tasking’ other systems.
I have a few Philips Hue bulbs at home, and the Hue Bridge that enables interaction with the bulbs exposes a nice RESTful API. My aim was to get CENode to use this API to control my lights.