Monday, March 22, 2010

Twitter controlled lights?

Just in case you though I'd gone away, here's a little hack to enable you to use Twitter to send commands to your BBSB (Bye Bye Standby) Online Controller.
This is a software hack, involving no Arduino's or soldering(!)
In this post, I use the Linksys NSLU2 Linux based NAS appliance, but I'm sure any Linux machine will happily play along with this, provided you've isntalled Perl.
Once you're set up ( see instructions on this link), you simply DM (Direct Message) your controller using Twitter - and hey presto!
DM mycontroller lounge lights on
Enjoy.
(Usual policy of shoddy coding applies of course)
UPDATE: Due to changing ISP, the links in the PDF are not valid - use these instead:
 
UPDATE: Twitter has stopped allowing basic Authentication, so these scripts will not work without modification - if you do update them please let me know 8-)




2 comments:

Unknown said...

Dear Sir:

You need to step away from any and all things electronic and try to enjoy an un-wired life!!! I couldn't follow a damned thing on your blog page - though I think it means you want to try to turn your lights on and off via your twitter account. I've got no bloody clue why you'd want to do that but then you are who you are, eh? :)

mart said...

Ok, imagine you're out one winter's day and think 'ooh, I'd love hot bath when I get home', but unfortunatley, your hot-water timer is set for later in the evening, and you just know that when you get home there wont be enough for that bath. Dammit.

But, its ok, you get out your phone, and tweet 'hot water please', your house turns on the hot water for you and when you get home 30 minutes later, you have a piping hot bath.

There. Have I sold it to you now?