cloudxtreme/insteon-hub

A simple server to allow multiple insteon home control apps to fully share a PLM

A server to allow multiple insteon apps to share a PLM

This is a standalone server, aka hub, that provides http access to the module home-controller which provides high-level access to the insteon network through a hub or a PLM on a serial port. insteon-hub only supports using home-controller with a serial port since it is itself a hub.

insteon-hub allows multiple home control apps to access the insteon network simultaneously. For example I have an HVAC app and a media center app both talking to insteon using insteon-hub.

The home control app can be in a desktop using Node or in a web page using Ajax to issue the http requests. Note that this means even a mobile device can send commands directly to your insteon network.

Usage

Use npm install insteon-hub to install in the folder of your choice. You will then find a folder called node_modules in that folder. Use cd node_modules/insteon-hub to enter the insteon-hub project folder.

To start the server use node ./lib/main <serial device> <network port>. On a mac or linux it will look like node ./lib/main /dev/ttyUSB0 1342 or node .\lib\main com1 3000 on windows.

HTTP Requests (URL Commands)

As of this version you can only send commands to the insteon network. In the near future you will be able to use a websocket to receive real-time events.

Each http request causes home-controller to execute one function call. The call can be a method on the main Insteon (plm) object or a device instance depending on whether the first part of the path is "plm" or not.

You must learn the home-controller function calls before you can use insteon-hub.

The URL format for a http request (function call) to the plm object is ...

http://<your-ip-number>:<your-port-number>/plm/<command>/arg1/arg2/...

# examples
http://192.168.1.100:3000/plm/info
http://192.168.1.100:3000/plm/info/03A280

Note that the above examples won't give useful responses unless you add ?async=1 to the end. See the Responses section below.

Commands to devices have this format. Note the similarity ...

http://<your-ip-number>:<your-port-number>/<device>/<command>/<device id>/arg1/arg2/...

#examples
http://192.168.1.100:3000/io/on/67E2F1
http://192.168.1.100:3000/light/turnOn/42FE92/50/slow

All arguments are strings and hex values must have all digits. So an arg of 4 would not work but 04 would. The case of devices and commands does matter but the case of hex numbers does not.

Reponses

The response is always in json format. If you don't add ?async=1 to the end of the request URL, then the response will be the return value of the call to the home-controller function. If you do add ?async=1 then the response will be the value of the callback from that function.

Not all functions have callbacks. So be careful to only use async mode on ones that do, like the plm::info functions in the example above. Read the home-controller documentation for details.

Status

insteon-hub is in alpha status. It has only been tested so far with plm and io devices. It will be tested with light devices soon.

License

insteon-hub is copyright Mark Hahn using the MIT license.