Automated Garage Door

Eric Ferreira, <2483476+ericbf@users.noreply.github.com>

About this project

The goal of this project was to automate the garage door at my house using tools that I could put together at home, as opposed to buying an enterprise solution. I chose to use a raspberry pi because it is powerful enough to run the server, but small enough to not take up too much space in my garage. I chose to use homebridge as my accessory server because it integrates directly with my devices (iOS devices) without having to deal with manual port forwarding or other networking issues.

I developed my custom accessory for homebridge using typescript, as opposed to every other accessory that I saw: they each just used plain javascript. Typescript enables the developer to use strong typing, generic types, and many other useful and powerful features in a language that transpiles to working javascript. My build script (npm run build) transpiles the ts files to the expected js files, maintaining the advanced functionality of ts while supporting the less advanced framework of js.

Files

• README.md: this file; contains some helpful information about the project.
• homebridge.service: start-up script that will run the homebridge server on startup on the raspberry pi.
• homebridge: configuration file for the start-up script.
• homebridge-garage-pi/*: the development files and resources.
• config.json: the configuration file for the homebridge server.

How to build

To build the dist archive, cd to the homebridge-garage-pi directory and run npm run build. That will package all the compiled code and the package.json into dist.zip.

How to run

To run this project on your own, you need to:

1. Install homebridge on your raspberry pi
2. Copy the files to the appropriate directories
   • Copy homebridge.service to /etc/systemd/system/
   • Copy homebridge to /etc/default/
   • Copy homebridge-garage-pi/dist.zip to /var/lib/homebridge/custom-accessories/homebridge-garage-pi/ and extract it and run npm i --prod there. You can then delete dist.zip.
   • Copy config.json to /var/lib/homebridge/
3. Enable the homebridge service using systemctl
4. Optionally see the homebridge logs with journalctl

References

[1] A. Mustajab, "How to control GPIO pins and operate relays with the Raspberry Pi", opensource.com, 2017. [Online]. Available: https://opensource.com/article/17/3/operate-relays-control-gpio-pins-raspberry-pi
[2] C. Baylor, "How to Replace Wall Switch to a Garage Door Opener", Homeguides.sfgate.com. [Online]. Available: http://homeguides.sfgate.com/replace-wall-switch-garage-door-opener-53104.html
[3] K. Tian, "nfarina/homebridge", GitHub, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://github.com/nfarina/homebridge [Accessed: 14-Feb-2018]
[4] S. Monk, "Adafruit's Raspberry Pi Lesson 12. Sensing Movement", Learn.adafruit.com, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-12-sensing-movement?view=all
[5] F. Barthelet, "How To Make Siri your Perfect Home Companion With Devices not Supported by Apple Homekit - Theodo", Theodo. [Online]. Available: https://blog.theodo.fr/2017/08/make-siri-perfect-home-companion-devices-not-supported-apple-homekit/ [Accessed: 10-Apr-2018]
[6] "KhaosT/HAP-NodeJS", GitHub. [Online]. Available: https://github.com/KhaosT/HAP-NodeJS/blob/master/lib/gen/HomeKitTypes.js [Accessed: 10-Apr-2018]