Connect with a device¶
IoT Drivers allow any Flectra module to communicate in real-time with any device connected to the IoT Box. Communication with the IoT Box goes both ways, so the Flectra client can send commands to and receive information from any of the supported devices.
To add support for a device, all we need is:
an
Interface
, to detect connected devices of a specific typea
Driver
, to communicate with an individual device
At each boot, the IoT Box will load all of the Interfaces and Drivers that can
be located on the connected Flectra instance. Each module can contain an
iot_handlers
directory that will be copied to the IoT Box. The structure of
this directory is the following
your_module
├── ...
└── iot_handlers
├── drivers
│ ├── DriverName.py
│ └── ...
│
└── interfaces
├── InterfaceName.py
└── ...
Detect Devices¶
Devices connected to the IoT Box are detected through Interfaces
. There is an
Interface for each supported connection type (USB, Bluetooth, Video,
Printers, Serial, etc.). The interface maintains a list of detected devices
and associates them with the right Driver.
Supported devices will appear both on the IoT Box Homepage that you can access through its IP address and in the IoT module of the connected Flectra instance.
Interface¶
The role of the Interface is to maintain a list of devices connected through a determined connection type. Creating a new interface requires
Extending the
Interface
classSetting the
connection_type
class attributeImplementing the
get_devices
method, that should return a dictionary containing data about each detected device. This data will be given as argument to the constructors andsupported
method of the Drivers.
Note
Setting the _loop_delay
attribute will modify the interval between calls
to get_devices
. By default, this interval is set to 3 seconds.
from flectra.addons.hw_drivers.interface import Interface
class InterfaceName(Interface):
connection_type = 'ConnectionType'
def get_devices(self):
return {
'device_identifier_1': {...},
...
}
Driver¶
Once the interface has retrieved the list of detected devices, it will loop
through all of the Drivers that have the same connection_type
attribute and
test their respective supported
method on all detected devices. If the
supported method of a Driver returns True
, an instance of this Driver will be
created for the corresponding device.
Note
supported
methods of drivers are given a priority order. The supported
method of a child class will always be tested before the one of its parent.
This priority can be adjusted by modifying the priority
attribute of the
Driver.
Creating a new Driver requires:
Extending
Driver
Setting the
connection_type
class attribute.Setting the
device_type
,device_connection
anddevice_name
attributes.Defining the
supported
method
from flectra.addons.hw_drivers.driver import Driver
class DriverName(Driver):
connection_type = 'ConnectionType'
def __init__(self, identifier, device):
super(NewDriver, self).__init__(identifier, device)
self.device_type = 'DeviceType'
self.device_connection = 'DeviceConnection'
self.device_name = 'DeviceName'
@classmethod
def supported(cls, device):
...
Communicate With Devices¶
Once your new device is detected and appears in the IoT module, the next step is to communicate with it. Since the box only has a local IP address, it can only be reached from the same local network. Communication, therefore, needs to happen on the browser-side, in JavaScript.
The process depends on the direction of the communication: - From the browser to the box, through Actions - From the box to the browser, through Longpolling
Both channels are accessed from the same JS object, the DeviceProxy
, which is
instantiated using the IP of the IoT Box and the device identifier.
var DeviceProxy = require('iot.DeviceProxy');
var iot_device = new DeviceProxy({
iot_ip: iot_ip,
identifier: device_identifier
});
Actions¶
Actions are used to tell a selected device to execute a specific action, such as taking a picture, printing a receipt, etc.
Note
It must be noted that no “answer” will be sent by the box on this route, only the request status. The answer to the action, if any, has to be retrieved via the longpolling.
An action can be performed on the DeviceProxy Object.
iot_device.action(data);
In your driver, define an action
method that will be executed when called
from an Flectra module. It takes the data given during the call as argument.
def action(self, data):
...
Longpolling¶
When any module in Flectra wants to read data from a specific device, it creates a listener identified by the IP/domain of the box and the device identifier and passes it a callback function to be called every time the device status changes. The callback is called with the new data as argument.
iot_device.add_listener(this._onValueChange.bind(this));
_onValueChange: function (result) {
...
}
In the Driver, an event is released by calling the device_changed
function
from the event_manager
. All callbacks set on the listener will then be called
with self.data
as argument.
from flectra.addons.hw_drivers.event_manager import event_manager
class DriverName(Driver):
connection_type = 'ConnectionType'
def methodName(self):
self.data = {
'value': 0.5,
...
}
event_manager.device_changed(self)