IR-Bridge Project / RaspberryPi

A daemon TCP server to offer a raw Infrared to TCP bridge

Tested on Raspberry PI model B Rev2, Distrib: raspdebian 3.12.35

Abstract

Comming from the idea of connecting an Infrared StartFrit scale to my smartphone (or even a cloud service), I decide to create this little project to have a full raw bridge between wifi and infrared.

Obvisouly a lot of similar projects are available on the net, but here the key-features are:

• A fully bi-directional IR to TCP bridge where others are mostly focused on one way.
• Full infrared's waveforms are bridged to allow clients to implement various proprietary IR protocols.
• A cross platform (Android, Linux, Windows) 'ircodec' library makes the job easier to deal with these raw's waveforms

At the really beginning of this project I start with NEC protocol (waveform below), which is one of the very common infrared protocol used for remotes. Consequently this project provides a way to do a universal remote or... maybe make a first low-cost step into the domotic world.

In a second step, I've reverse-engineered my starfrit scale which use a proprietary IR protocols. This part is referenced as 'unkn0' protocol in the 'ircodec' sources.

History

2015/07 : Jan dOrgeville - first issue

Prequists

This project is based on lirc for linux, so you need to install the package with the following line

sudo apt-get install lirc

Then add the following line in /etc/modules (depending on your GPIO setup)

lirc_dev
lirc_rpi gpio_in_pin=23 gpio_out_pin=22

Change your /etc/lirc/hardware.conf file to:

########################################################
# /etc/lirc/hardware.conf
#
# Arguments which will be used when launching lircd
LIRCD_ARGS="--uinput"

# Don't start lircmd even if there seems to be a good config file
# START_LIRCMD=false

# Don't start irexec, even if a good config file seems to exist.
# START_IREXEC=false

# Try to load appropriate kernel modules
LOAD_MODULES=true

# Run "lircd --driver=help" for a list of supported drivers.
DRIVER="default"
# usually /dev/lirc0 is the correct setting for systems using udev
DEVICE="/dev/lirc0"
MODULES="lirc_rpi"

# Default configuration files for your hardware if any
LIRCD_CONF=""
LIRCMD_CONF=""
########################################################

Edit your /boot/config.txt file and add:

dtoverlay=lirc-rpi,gpio_in_pin=23,gpio_out_pin=22

more information here: http://alexba.in/blog/2013/01/06/setting-up-lirc-on-the-raspberrypi/
lirc sources before raspberry patches: http://lirc.sourceforge.net/

Installation :

Once your lirc is fully functional, remove the default lirc daemon start script

sudo update-rc.d -f lirc remove

Then compile IRBridge with:

cd raspberrypi/irbrgd
chmod a+x setup.sh
make && sudo ./setup.sh

See self explained configuration file lays here

/etc/irbrgd/irbrgd.conf

To manually stop the daemon:

sudo irbrgd stop

Wifi troubleshooting :

On my own wifi setup, I realize that my wifi is not very stable, and sometime, it just falls for obscure reason (wifi router reboot?). To avoid this I have made the following changes:

• change /etc/network/if-down.d/irbrgd

if [ "$IFACE" = wlan0 ]; then
   sudo /usr/sbin/irbrgd stop
fi

• change /etc/network/if-up.d/irbrgd

if [ "$IFACE" = --all ] || [ "$IFACE" = wlan0 ]; then
   sudo /usr/sbin/irbrgd start
fi

• add service to reconnect wlan0 if unassociated

sudo cp raspberrypi/irbrgd/wlan_reconnect.sh /etc/init.d/. 
sudo chmod a+x /etc/init.d/wlan_reconnect.sh
sudo update-rc.d wlan_reconnect.sh defaults

Clients :

2 samples clients are provided:

clients/android

A very basic android sample project (Tuned for Eclipse)

clients/linux

A regular TCP client which also shows the measured weight and provides the following commands:

h - help
q - quit
1 - send light ON
2 - send light OFF
3 - send 88.3Kg

Folders Layout:

• raspberrypi/ir-test0 : really first test with lirc driver, it shows pulse/space waveform when an infrared activity is detected
• raspberrypi/ir-test1 : show NEC code when a NEC-based remote is used
• raspberrypi/ir-test2 : show/send NEC code when user press a key (see main.c)
• raspberrypi/ir-test3 : same as ir-test2 but with a starfrit Scale 39bits proprietary IR protocol
• raspberrypi/server : a first version of a TCP/IR bridge
• raspberrypi/irbrgd : the final project which is basically the daemon version of the previous project
• raspberrypi/docs : docs about starfrit revert engineering
• raspberrypi/clients : clients samples
• raspberrypi/ircodec : cross platform library for raw IR waveforms coding/decoding

License :

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.