Remote Control With Raspberry Pi and Phidget WebService

Enable your Raspberry to control relay, led, sensor and digital input remotely with Phidget WebService. "The Phidget WebService is a background process that broadcasts all events and data from a USB Phidget over the network: It uses link local addressing which allows you to use simple server names in your code. The link local addressing is provided by the programs Bonjour, avahi, or mDNSResponder, depending on your system, and the correct program is either installed already or with the Phidget libraries. You can listen to the Phidget data and control the Phidgets over the network using one or more computers."More info

You need a Raspberry with Raspbian preinstalled, a Phidgets IO Board, I use a 1011_0 - PhidgetInterfaceKit 2/2/2, a small usb Dongle with 2 Analog Inputs, 2 Digital Inputs and 2 Digital Outputs, two analog sensor, in this tutorial I use a 1133_0 - Sound Sensor and a 1142_0 - Light Sensor 1000 lux, two led connected to digital output, one toggle switch and a Miniature Magnetic Contact Switch connected to digital input.

Step 1: Install Phidget Library

Update the packages with

sudo apt-get update

and

sudo apt-get upgrade

Install libusb (Library for programming USB applications without the knowledge of Linux kernel internals).

sudo apt-get install libusb-1.0-0-dev

download and install the Phidgets libraries.

wget http://www.phidgets.com/downloads/libraries/libphidget.tar.gz

then

tar zxvf libphidget.tar.gz

move in the decompressed folder, in this example

cd libphidget-2.1.8.20150410/

From the main unpacked libraries directory, run:

./configure

make

this takes a long time, you can go get a coffee

sudo make install

This will compile phidget21.h and place the library into your gcc path

Step 2: Install the WebService

Download the webservice

wget http://www.phidgets.com/downloads/libraries/phidgetwebservice.tar.gz

then

tar zxvf phidgetwebservice.tar.gz

move in the decompressed folder in this example

cd phidgetwebservice-2.1.8.20150410/

From the unpacked WebService source code directory, run:

./configure

make

sudo make install

This will compile the executable phidgetwebservice21 and place it into /usr/bin/phidgetwebservice21

Create a file to manage start and stop for the webservice

sudo nano /home/pi/phidgetwebservice

with this content

#!/bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          phidgetwebservice
# Required-Start:    $network $remote_fs
# Required-Stop:     $network $remote_fs
# Should-Start:      avahi
# Should-Stop:       avahi
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: Phidget WebService
# Description:       Phidget WebService for controlling Phidgets over the network.
### END INIT INFO
DESC="Phidget WebService"
NAME=phidgetwebservice
BIN=phidgetwebservice21
DAEMON=/usr/bin/$BIN
PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
CFG=/etc/default/$NAME
# Gracefully exit if the package has been removed.
test -x $DAEMON || exit 0
# load config
pws_port="5001"
pws_serverid=""
pws_password=""
[ -f $CFG ] && . $CFG
start() {
    [ -z "$pws_port" ] || OPTIONS="-p $pws_port "
    [ -z "$pws_password" ] || OPTIONS="$OPTIONS-P $pws_password "
    if [ -z "$pws_serverid" ]; then
        OPTIONS="$OPTIONS -n $( hostname )"
    else
        OPTIONS="$OPTIONS -n $pws_serverid"
    fi
    echo -n "Starting $DESC: "
    start-stop-daemon -S -b -q -p $PIDFILE -m -x $DAEMON -- $OPTIONS && echo "OK" || echo "ALREADY RUNNING"
}
stop() {
    echo -n "Stopping $DESC: "
    start-stop-daemon -K -q -p $PIDFILE -x $DAEMON && echo "OK" || echo "NOT RUNNING"
}
case "$1" in
  start)
    start
    ;;
  stop)
    stop
    ;;
  restart|force-reload)
    stop
    sleep 1
    start
    ;;
  *)
    echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}"
esac
exit 0

give it executable permission

sudo chmod -R 0755 /home/pi/phidgetwebservice

then try to start with command

sudo sh  phidgetwebservice start

To start the web service automatically

sudo mv /home/pi/phidgetwebservice /etc/init.d/phidgetwebservice

sudo insserv -d phidgetwebservice

reboot raspberry

sudo reboot

Step 3: Use It

Ok now we can control the 1011 remotely.

For Windows open the Phidgets control panel, in tab Web Service / Bonjour you can see all boards Phidgets connected to Raspberry

Double click on Phidget InterfaceKit 2/2/2 open this window, where you can read input analogic - digital and interact with output, turn on/off the leds

For Mac

In this tutorial I used the control panel Phidgets to test the operation, of course you can write your application in a language you want and with the operating system that you use normally. If you need more inputs outputs you can use the 1018 or 1012.