The present program/library emulates a TCP commands of a GlobalCaché networked IR sender, like the Flex. The emulation is not complete. The device emulated has one IR sender, and optionally a learner. Sensor inputs and relay closures are planned, but not yet implemented.
Hardware requirements are a "sufficiently large" Arduino with a supported Ethernet shield. The program has been developed on an Arduino Mega 2560 with an Ethernet shield from the first generation (with W5100 chip). It is believed, that, possibly after some stripping, it should run on an Uno-class board. However, this has not yet been verified.
The program/library is built on top of my IR library Infrared4Arduino. Optionally, the ABeacon library is used to advertise the device on the local network. Other that that, only official Arduino libraries are used.
The TCP API is described here.
The program/library was written from scratch by myself. It is licensed under the GNU Public License version 2 or later.
There is a class GlobalCovfefe and a derived class GlobalCovfefeLearner
contained in the src directory. These classes operates
on a Stream.
This is typically, but not necessarily,
an EthernetClient instance.
The "example" GlobalCovfefe contains the deployment program. It controls the
Ethernet connections, and delivers it, as a Stream to an instance of the class GlobalCovfefe[Learner].
The example SerialCovfefe, however, uses only Serial, and can be used for
testing or debugging the library.
Most important difference from the GlobalCache devices
is that the current program is single-threaded.
That is, it accepts one command, executes it, and only when it is finished
(or times out), the program listens for new commands.
Thereby, commands like stopir are not meaningful, and not implemented.
For this reason, only one connection at a time is possible. If one connection is active, the device will not respond to further connection attempts until the first connection is terminated. (This makes a LED indicating open connection () quite useful.)
getversion: Returns the version of the current program, identical to the version in the library manager.getdevices: Returns the configured devices in a machine parseable way.blink: Blinks the configured LEDs.sendir: sends a (raw) IR command. Compressed commands are not implemented (but planned).get_IRL: reads an IR signal and returns it (Only if a learner has been configured.)
Expected responses are produced. Error handling and sensibility checking of the provided arguments are essentially non-existent.
- Only a subset of the TCP commands are implemented.
- The HTTP API, including file storage, is not supported.
- Only one sender is supported.
- Configuration is during compilation only; the GlobalCaché products are higly configurable, for example with an embedded HTTP server.
- Only one session, single-threaded. (Thus no commands like
stopirwould be sensible.)
The program/library depends on Infrared4Arduino version 1.0.4 or later, and (optionally) on ABeacon.
The GlobalCache hardware is extensively configurable, both using the TCP commands,
as well as using the built-in HTTP-server. This program is instead configured
during compilation, using CPP defines in the file config.h. These are described in that file.
For the configuration of the IrSender and, optionally, the learner, see the documenation of Infrared4Arduino.
The library supports up to three LEDs, indicating the present operating mode.
These are defined in config.h by assigning pin numbers (denoting pins that make
"something" light up when make high) to CPP symobls. This is highly recommended
for problem solving and debugging.
GlobalCache devices advertise their configuration with the getdevices command.
This is used here too.
An IR module is present as module 1. It has one port.
Sensor input is planned but not yet implemented.
Relay module is planned but not yet implemented.
Due to the single-threaded architecture, implementing a serial module, as in the original hardware, is not possible.
GlobalCovfefe as such is a portable program, not a program that needs porting. There are no other "dependencies" than a certain resource consumption. Resources are allocated only indirectly. through the used libraries. However, Infrared4Arduino (which is the low-level library that this one builds upon) only runs on some hardware, and does allocate some resources like timers and interrupts. Porting it it to more hardware platforms is desirable and planned. Help is solicited.
API documentation for the classes in the library are generated by Doxygen. This available online here. The "application" in the example is not documented in this way.
Unfortunately, the restriction of only one session can cause somewhat unexpected behavior in IrScrutinizer. If opened for sending (using the "Sending hw" pane), the connection has to be closed before opening for capturing (the "Capturing hw" pane) -- and similarly for going from capturing to transmitting. Unfortunately, in the present IrScrutinizer there is no possibility to force a GlobalCache connection to close, except for opening a connection with another GlobalCache device, which is of course not possible if only one is present... (IrScrutinizer issue) Workaround: reset the Arduino to close the connection.
Bug reports, improvements requests etc. are solicited and can be directed to GitHub issues. General discussion etc can be directed to the Arduino Home Automation section and Networked Objects forum.