New plugin for RFLink Gateway

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I just created my first plugin for the RFLink Gateway.
The plugin code is on GitHub and has been published on the NPM repository.

It is my first real experience with Javascript/Coffeescript/node so go easy on me and please give suggestions to improve

Most of the plugin structure is copied from the pimatic-homeduino and homeduinojs projects.

It serves a similar purpose as the Homeduino board, but instead interfaces with the protocol of the RFLink Gateway to control many 433Mhz switches and dimmers. Other sensors/devides are also supported by the RFLink Gateway, but not yet by this plugin.

@Moustaggio Nice! I like the RFLink more because of the antenna and the enclosure. Is there a way to also control the NRF?

edit: Can it also receive switch status? Like the AWST-8800.

I really like the plugin but its not working for me. I getting an error about serialport.

@gekkonl
please post the complete error, otherwise it’s very hard to debug.
i can imagine that @Moustaggio doesn’t have any crystal balls available right now

Here is the log without driveroptions in the config:

17:53:10.302 [pimatic-mobile-frontend] rendering html

/home/pi/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic-rflink/lib/serialport.coffee:55
            write("10;REBOOT;\n")["catch"](function(error) {
            ^
ReferenceError: write is not defined
    at SerialPort.<anonymous> (/home/pi/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic-rflink/lib/serialport.coffee:44:11)
    at SerialPort.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:95:17)
    at /home/pi/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic-rflink/node_modules/serialport/parsers.js:25:17
    at Array.forEach (native)
    at Object.parser (/home/pi/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic-rflink/node_modules/serialport/parsers.js:24:13)
    at Object.SerialPort.opts.dataCallback (/home/pi/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic-rflink/node_modules/serialport/serialport.js:181:12)
    at SerialPortFactory.SerialPort._emitData (/home/pi/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic-rflink/node_modules/serialport/serialport.js:396:20)
    at afterRead (/home/pi/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic-rflink/node_modules/serialport/serialport.js:372:20)
    at /home/pi/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic-rflink/node_modules/serialport/serialport.js:388:9
    at Object.wrapper [as oncomplete] (fs.js:454:17)
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ 

here is a log with config like on your github:

18:01:45.005 [pimatic-angular-material-frontend] Mounted material frontend on '/material'

events.js:72
        throw er; // Unhandled 'error' event
              ^
Error: Cannot open /dev/tty.usbmodem641
pi@raspberrypi ~ $

and i also try to change tty.usbmodem641 to ttyUSB0 but still no luck.

@Moustaggio Nice project! Thanks for sharing. I think the RFLink Gateway provides an interesting option for users who prefer a boxed, all-in-one hardware. I think it also great that the design is open so that tinkerers can simply wire the radios with the arduino similar to what we have for arduino. So it also possible to evaluate stuff without investing in additional hardware - the 433Mhz variant of the RFLink Gateway works with the same radios we use for homeduino.

An off-topic side note as we had these discussions on how to achieve better reception: Among the proposals we had it was also suggested to use two capacitors (100nf 10 uF) to de-noise the power lines of the radio receiver. The RFLink guys even suggest to use three capacitors.

Another thing we discussed was about whether or not it makes sense to buy a shielded receiver. The RFLink blog suggests to shield the receiver using some aluminium foil or similar (further instructions given in the blog post - not required if the receiver already provides a shield).

@gekkonl said:

Here is the log without driveroptions in the config:

I think this is a bug. I’ll file a PR for it. You can try to fix it on your own by edititing /home/pi/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic-rflink/lib/serialport.coffee. Jump to line 44 and insert an @ sign before write. Make sure the identation does not change!

Should be as follows
https://github.com/mwittig/pimatic-rflink/blob/patch-1/lib/serialport.coffee#L44

@mwittig Thank you that is working for my now.

And because homeduino is stopt working for strange reasons iam glad this is working now

@gekkonl
did you try to reflash homeduino?

Yes i reflashed it and updated everything but i think the arduino is broken because its working for 10 min after that i get a time out iam going to order a new arduino because its working for a really long time and now it gave up on my.

On topic:

I added a switch for the rflink then i get this error:

19:58:50.729 [pimatic] New device "Iemand thuis ?"...

buffer.js:491
      length += buf.length;
                   ^
TypeError: Cannot read property 'length' of undefined
    at Function.Buffer.concat (buffer.js:491:20)
    at afterRead (/home/pi/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic-rflink/node_modules/serialport/serialport.js:369:36)
    at /home/pi/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic-rflink/node_modules/serialport/serialport.js:388:9
    at Object.wrapper [as oncomplete] (fs.js:454:17)
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ 

@gekkonl said:

TypeError: Cannot read property ‘length’ of undefined

You’re not alone as a few users including myself had or have this problem. The possible causes are manyfold, like a bad kernel driver (if you updated the OS recently), a bad power supply (some power supplies suffer from aging or you have added another consumer), a bad Arduino (well, I guess these device can also break over time) … and so on. In my case it was the poor USB design of the Raspi A which was unreliable (replaced it with Raspi B 2) and a poor power supply. I also added the aforementioned capacitors to denoise the radios. The latter may also have helped.

See also

• https://github.com/pimatic/pimatic/issues/711
• https://github.com/pimatic/pimatic/issues/704
• http://forum.pimatic.org/topic/469/stability-problems-with-homeduino-pimatic-looses-connection-after-several-hours

Wow, I’m really amazed at how fast it got picked up by this community

I see that the problem encountered was in some defensive error handling code that never occurred in my happy day of testing at home. Do note however that the plugin does not work with a ‘normal’ Homeduino configured board, only with a board configured as RFLink (see URL in 1st post).

As I initially wanted to start out with Domoticz, I purchased the components for RFLink and assembled it. After wanting to switch to Pimatic (mainly for better Homekit support), I first tried to convert my RFLink to a Homeduino so I would get plugin support out of the box. Unfortunately I failed to get it working with the correct pin/interrupt configuration (also 1st experience ever with Arduino) so I decided to try to make a Pimatic plugin to work with RFLink instead.

@mwittig: I accepted the PR and will publish a new release soon.

@gekkonl: Would like to know if it will work correctly with the whole reboot handling though, as I didn’t got a chance to test it myself. Please let me know if you find any further problems.

@sweebee: Yes, RFLink will also receive commands from other remotes and should update switch status accordingly. I only have a couple of KlikAanKlikUit (KaKu) switches and dimmers so those were the only ones I could test. Setting the dimmer level through the cheap remote however is not picked up as it toggles the device in ‘dimming level cycling mode’. Press ‘on’ to turn it on, then press ‘on’ again to have the dimmer autonomously cycle 100% <-> 0% until the ‘on’ button is pressed again to fix the level it is currently at. If a fancier remote would be used to directly set the dimmer level, as the RFLink (and thus Pimatic through this plugin) can, it should pick up that level and propagate it to the device settings in Pimatic.

@Moustaggio said:

I see that the problem encountered was in some defensive error handling code that never occurred in my happy day of testing at home. Do note however that the plugin does not work with a ‘normal’ Homeduino configured board, only with a board configured as RFLink (see URL in 1st post).

Sorry, I was misled as we had the same error with homeduino.

Great to see this plugin!
Let us know if there are any questions about the protocol that RFLink talks.

I ordered a RF link and i will test it. Maybe I can add the PIR and Contact devices, I also have some 433mhz weather stations.

@Stuntteam: are you involved in development of the RFLink and/or its firmware and protocol? If so then I would like to point out that its handling of the ID field seems a bit inconsistent. In RF signals received I get an ID of 8 hex characters, 1st and second being ‘0’, but when I try to send a command with that ID, it is not accepted. If I would remove the preceding two 0’s, then the command is accepted. This is strange as there is an example in the protocol description with an ID of 8 significant characters (10;HomeEasy;7900b100;3;ON;) I worked around it in my plugin implementation by transforming the ID to decimal and back to hex, and prepending 0’s to fill 6 characters, but this is of course far from ideal.

@sweebee: cool! I don’t have any other devices (yet ), so implementing them would be ‘code and pray’. Most of the generic code however should be in place, so adding a new device config should easily be possible. Please send me a PR If you’ve got it working and I’ll integrate it in a new release.

@mwittig and @gekkonl: looking at the second listing of the error after adding a switch, the error occurs in the serialport.js driver I use, which is exactly the same as the one used by the Homeduino plugin. My installation currently has version 2.0.6, which is the latest version published 3 weeks ago according to NPM registry. You can check if your version maybe differs or reinstall it?

@Moustaggio said:

the error occurs in the serialport.js driver I use, which is exactly the same as the one used by the Homeduino plugin

Homeduino is using an older version of serialport, 1.4.5 as far as I can tell. However, as it is the same error it may be due to the same probably cause. I think it happens when the arduino stops working properly.

@mwittig said:

Homeduino is using an older version of serialport, 1.4.5 as far as I can tell. However, as it is the same error it may be due to the same probably cause. I think it happens when the arduino stops working properly.

Ah, indeed, I remember I’ve checked if the code would work with latest version (which seems to be the case in my setup) so I would at least start out with the latest-greatest version of that dependency.

Looking at the code of serialport.js, it seems that there may also be a bug in there in handling disconnect (or pause, in both cases self.pause is set to true), which ends up in the problem as you’ve encountered. Try adding

self.buffer = new Buffer(0); #this line
self.paused = true;

before the paused = true statements on line 401 and 436.
That should prevent the issue and maybe discover the root cause.

If it resolves your issue maybe propose a PR to author of serialport lib?

@Moustaggio said:

That should prevent the issue and maybe discover the root cause.

Ah, OK. Interesting. Someone, who currently has the issue should test it. May be @Icesory ? However, I am not optimistic the serial port connection will be re-established. But as you say it may help to find the root cause.