New Plugin: Nest Thermostats

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So, I wrote a plugin yesterday for Nest Thermostats. While it is still very very alpha, it does work to obtain and subscribe to changes in Nest Thermostats. Functionally to set the temperature will be coming shortly. However, I have no interest in designing a front end for it, so if any one wants to contribute, please do so, and submit a pull request.

Better yet, if anyone wants to take it over, that’d be better.

The plugin can be found here: https://github.com/aap82/pimatic-nest along with instructions to obtain a nest token, and setup.

PLEASE USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

UPDATE #2

I’ve just posted a new version of the nest-plugin.

Aside from completely re-writing the thermostat device code, some new features have been added:

1. Action providers for NestThermostat device, for changing target_temperature and hvac_mode.
2. New device NestHomeAwayToggle, that allows changing the Home or Away state. There’s DeviceItem available for the mobile-front-end, based on the Switch DeviceItem, but customized, as well as a predicate provider.
3. Updated README. See https://github.com/aap82/pimatic-nest for more.

UPDATE
Actions to set the temperature are available through the http rest api.

Thermostat device completely re-written. Also, action handler added for target_temperature and hvac_mode.

Seeking brave testers.

GREAT!! that’s nice to hear and we appreciate it!
in how far you need to design something for the frontend?
what’s the issue?

There is no issue at all. It’s simply not a priority for me because I don’t have an absolute need for it. There’s also the fact I despise jquery. If it were a react frontend, I could have it built in a few minutes, and it would be no problem.

I was trying to install this, this morning but ran into a wierd error saying my cURL didn’t allow for SSL requests and lookups… I will attempt to install this evening. It promises some good fun with a nice result!

Thanks for your effort and sharing the plugin!

Regards,

Ruud

@ruudvddries were you able to get the curl post command to work?

@amit-patel not yet. I figured my pimatic needs a reinstall (accidently installed node.js for raspberry pi B and after that installed the correct version as I’m in a rPi2) and then I fell asleep… But when I do, I will let you know!

Regards,

Ruud

@ruudvddries thanks. btw, you don’t have to run the curl command on rpi. You can use the postman chrome extension on any computer to post the url and get the token. But you only have a finite amount of time to use the pincode

@amit-patel Hi, I got to reinstalling Pimatic. It now seems to run stable for at least more than 3 days (I was having infrequent ‘freezes’). I f installed the plugin and got my access-token (via Postman, thanks for the hint there). Now I’m trying to discover the devices… But not with much luck up untill now.

Regards,

Ruud

@ruudvddries said in New Plugin: Nest Thermostats:

@amit-patel Hi, I got to reinstalling Pimatic. It now seems to run stable for at least more than 3 days (I was having infrequent ‘freezes’). I f installed the plugin and got my access-token (via Postman, thanks for the hint there). Now I’m trying to discover the devices… But not with much luck up untill now.

Regards,

Ruud

A simple restart of pimatic helped me here. After installing, activating and configuring the plugin, a restart of pimatic was all there was needed to discover the devices.

@ruudvddries Got it to work. Plugin works, devices are being discoverd. One question remains. I would like to use the ‘Presence’ and the ‘Toggle’ Device. This doesn’t seem to be possible, as I get the following error;

Oops...
NestHomeAwayPresence device already exists with same structure_id.

Should I do something to avoid this error? Or is it not possible to use both devices together?

Regards,

Ruud

Yes, that’s by design because I didn’t want to spend the extra time to make them work nice together.

Is there a reason you need both? If you’re using the toggle, there is a custom predicate provider you will react to changes in Home/Away presence for use in rules.

However, it is not possible to change the state of Home/Away via rules. Nest frowns upon that.

@amit-patel Hi, I guess I’m not using them both. I was just curious whether that would be handy. I’m totally new to a thermostat in Pimatic, as my years old Nest was never connected to it. No that it is, and again, many thanks for your effort!, I’m looking at how a thermostat device would work. I now have a dummy thermostat device but I can’t see how to connect it to the Nest action providers… Would it work with rules? I kind of like the idea of having a buttons device that shows the current value between een + en - button…

Does anyone have an idea how to go about this?

Regards,

Ruud

@amit-patel Hi! First off, I would like to learn a lot. I still have to learn a lot, so maybe I’m asking ‘dumb’ questions.

I was playing a bit with the DummyThermostatDevice. I was able to create it and get the various variables belonging to the device. Than I created a rule like so;

WHEN $nest-control.temperatureSetpoint changes SET target_temperature of Nest Thermostat - Living Room to $nest-control.temperatureSetpoint

but it errors out;

Oops...
Could not find an provider that provides the next action of "set target_temperature of Nest Thermostat - Living Room
to $nest-control.temperatureSetpoint".

What am I doing wrong?

Regards,

Ruud

@ruudvddries you are not doing anything wrong. Its not possible to set the temperature to a variable at the moment through the rule action provider. I never contemplated it, as well as have never done it, but I’ll try to add it in the next few days.

Since you’re willing to learn, how comfortable are you with the code for the mobile front end? I ask, because if you want, it should be quite possible to take the existing mobile front end code for the Thermostat Item (see: https://github.com/pimatic/pimatic-mobile-frontend/blob/master/app/pages/index-items.coffee towards the bottom), and alter it such that it can be used with the nest device. You’d probably also have to modify the template as well (see: https://github.com/pimatic/pimatic-mobile-frontend/blob/master/app/views/pages/index.jade).

I would, but this is much more work, and I don’t really use the mobile-front-end often.

@amit-patel When I say learn I mean learn. So yah, I will have a try. I’m thinking of opening a new topic on this and ‘with a little help from my friends’ I see it feasible to do this. Having said that, I’m not making any promises. I have already had a little peak at the coffee script (seems a sort of javascript) and I think I should start with this bit;

changeTemperatureTo: (temperatureSetpoint) ->
  @input.spinbox('disable')
  @device.rest.changeTemperatureTo({temperatureSetpoint}, global: no)
    .done(ajaxShowToast)
    .fail(ajaxAlertFail)
    .always( => @input.spinbox('enable') )

First, step would be figuring out how to get to the ‘set Nest to x degrees’ action.

Here goes nothing!

Regards and many thanks!

Ruud

@ruudvddries Great! I’m glad you’re willing.

First, before you even get started, I highly recommend reading this page from top to bottom: http://coffeescript.org/v1/ Trust me, it’s worth the time especially if you are new to coffeescript. It will save you from wasting far more time in the future.

Next, if you aren’t already using a code-editor or an IDE, you should download one before starting. There are plenty opensource ones out there. Here are a few:

• Atom
• Brackets
• Visual Studio Code
  I suggest atom, as it has pretty good github integration, which you’re going to need when your code is ready to be merged into the main plugin.

Finally, you should read https://pimatic.teamemo.com/Development and I highly recommend setting up a separate (preferable local) development environment. Reading the docs should help gain a better of understanding the framework as well as the task at hand.

First, step would be figuring out how to get to the ‘set Nest to x degrees’ action.

“set Nest to x degrees” is something that is only available to the Action Provider, which translates the command string into an action that can be executed by the NestThermostat device. These are all the device actions exposed by the NestThermostat device: https://github.com/aap82/pimatic-nest/blob/master/devices/nest-thermostat-actions.coffee

The equivalent changeTemperatureTo for the NestThermostat is changeTargetTempTo.

Also while testing, be careful not to send to many commands in quick succession to the actual nest thermostats. The NestAPI will block further commands for about 15 minutes if you send too many too quickly. I recommend you short circuit the _sendNestCommand method in the NestThermostat device code by adding a return above return new Promise

Also, take a look at the attributes file as the names for the NestThermostat device are different. https://github.com/aap82/pimatic-nest/blob/master/devices/nest-thermostat-attributes.coffee

I hope you find this helpful as you get started.

@amit-patel I hope so too. Luckily I am well aquinted with PHP, JavaScript, jQuery and bootstrap4 and a fan of Atom. CoffeeJS than only seems to be a small step forward. Main issue I see, is understanding the structure of the pimatic framework and determining what is what. But there is only one way to find out and that is doing it.

Progress will be slow, but I will be doing this!