New Plugin: Flic Buttons

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This is a plugin for Flic Buttons. There is an existing plugin (which I have never tried), It didn’t suit my needs, so I created a new one.

Features include:

• Support for multiple remote daemons
• FlicScanWizard utility device to discover and pair flic buttons
• Custom predicate provider

I have only tested this plugin with remote daemon connections to multiple WiFi-connected pi zero Ws. Using this setup, there is near instantaneous notification of events. However, i have the pimatic-app running on a core i5 machine with wired ethernet. YMMV.

Suggestion:

In my experience, using cheap BLE dongles is a nightmare. They can sometimes be difficult to install and setup properly. And even once its successfully paired, the connection can be quite unstable. I highly recommend using a pi zero w ($10 us). I have found the BLE range is quite good, and the connection is highly stable. Plus its an rPi, so it can be used for other stuff as well.

The plugin and more details can be found here: https://github.com/aap82/pimatic-flic

very nice. thx for your efforts.
one question, does this plugin only work with flic or what oher buttons are possible / reccomended? to make it short - a flic for me is way to expensive imho

I agree with you that flics are financially impractical, and given the oppourtunity to purchase one today, I would not. Having said that, my reality exists such that I do have Flics, and wished to integrate them into pimatic.

Also, I can only confirm that the plugin works with Flic Buttons, as its written and utilizes a library to interface with a daemon server provided by Shortcut Labs, the makers of Flic Buttons.

If there are other low cost, fully assembled BLE based buttons similar to a flic, I would be happy to purchase them myself and test with the daemon. I simply haven’t come across one here in the states.

IMHO, i think battery-operated, small-footprint, and low-profile (easily hideable) button devices are the holy grail to home automation. More simply, I want the buttons, which no one can see, under ordinary objects (i.e. tables), and have it do things.

@amit patel nice work
Maybe you could use this key. I know it’s designed for something else, but the price.

@wutu link doesnt work.

I’m sorry, fixed.

@wutu thank you, just purchased one. It’s not something I see as practical (given the size), but at that price, I am interested in finding out if I could get it to work.

p.s. of course I’ll let you know if I do.

@wutu If I may also add, I am not a developer/programmer by trade, and have zero formal training, as such, any feedback (or pull requests) are greatly appreciated. Es hat mir sehr gut gefallen. Please, please please do hesitate.

@amit-patel
I’ve gone through your code and I think you’re a much better programmer than I am.
I’m only going to be programming for Pimatic. It’s also not my real job. But if I can, I’ll help.

I have two itag on the table. I’m looking at what to do about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3QMKk45eJE

And because I’m MQTT positive. I will test this today or something similar.
https://github.com/flochtililoch/bluetooth-mqtt-proxy

@wutu Thank you. I, too, am mqtt positive. However, with this plugin, and the nest one before, (both were interfacing pimatic with your mqtt plugin), I am trying to wean myself off of it.

I took a quick look at that bluetooth-mqtt-proxy, which doesn’t really do anything, but relies on the bleno npm package, and the compatibility is unclear to me right now.

@amit-patel Yes the gate is primitive. I created a new topic for ITag.