C-Bus for Homebridge

HomeKit-enable your C-Bus installation with the homebridge-cbus plugin for the Homebridge server.

homebridge-cbus provides a bridge between Clipsal's C-Bus C-Gate server and Apple's HomeKit.

Once setup, a homebridge server with the homebridge-cbus plugin will allow you to instantly monitor and control all of your supported C-Bus accessories.

What does that mean? You'll be able to control your home with:

• Siri voice commands
• the built-in iOS 10+ Home app
• iOS apps that support HomeKit.

In Action

To see some action of HomeKit controlling a Clipsal C-Bus system, check out the following videos:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_pzVlegnio
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NT9AGQd_FU

Device Support

This project provides a bridge which 'exposes' your devices in a way that you can control then using HomeKit. homebrige-cbus is currently able to control and/or monitor:

• lights
• switches (with optional timeout)
• dimmers
• shutter relays
• fans
• motion sensors
• security presence detectors
• trigger events

If you need support for a new device type, feel free to open an issue, or have a go cutting code yourself. If you have some familiarity with Node.js you'll find it pretty straightforward.

Installation

After installing and setting up Homebridge, you can install the homebridge-cbus plugin with:

npm install -g homebridge-cbus

Once installed, update your Homebridge's config.json.

N.B. you will need a C-Bus C-Gate server on your network. This is a cross platform Java application which runs on most platforms.

Configuration

As with other Homebridge plugins, you configure the homebridge-cbus plugin by adding it to your config.json.

  "platforms": [
    {
      "platform": "homebridge-cbus.CBus",
      "name": "CBus",
      "client_ip_address": "127.0.0.1",
      "client_controlport": 20023,
      "client_cbusname": "HOME",
      "client_network": 254,
      "client_application": 56,
      "client_debug": true,
      
      "platform_export": "my-platform.json",
      
      "accessories": [ ... ]
     }
]

N.B. If you are connecting to a remote C-Gate server, you will likely need to configure C-Gate for remote connections by adding an interface entry to the file cgate/config/access.txt.

Configuration platform fields

• platform and name: platform and name – you may leave these values
• client_ip_address: (required) IP address of your C-Gate server
• client_controlport: (optional, defaults to 20023) port number of the C-Gate control port
• client_cbusname: (required) project name of your C-Bus network
• client_network: (optional, defaults to 254) default network address for your C-Bus devices
• client_application: (optional, defaults to 56) default application address for your C-Bus devices
• client_debug: (optional, defaults to false) set to true to write C-Bus client debug logs to the console
• accessories: (required) list of accessories to expose to the Homebridge server
• platform_export: (optional) path to file for exporting a unified accessory list, see below.

(NB. client_eventport and client_statusport are no longer required, and will be safely ignored)

Registering accessories

You must register devices by hand in a config file, however to make this easier for you, homebridge-cbus can automatically build most of the file for you. See Unified Accessory List, below.

The platform definition in the config.json file contains an accessories array, which defines the available accessories using the following keys:

• type: (required) type of the accessory. The valid values are "light", "switch", "dimmer", "shutter", "motion", "security" and "trigger".
• name: (required) name of the accessory (e.g. "Living Room Light", "Bedroom Light", "Living Room Curtain" etc.)
• network: (optional, defaults to client_network) C-Bus network address of the device
• application: (optional, defaults to client_application) The C-Bus Application address of the device
• id: (required) C-Bus address of the device — every accessory in C-Bus has one
• invert: (optional, defaults to false) only used by the shutter relay accessory and indicates that the shutter has been wired to open when commanded closed and vice versa
• activeDuration: (optional) only used by the switch accessory, indicating a timeout period, after which the switch will automatically switch off. This allows a HomeKit switch accessory to be used to generate a Bell Press event.
• rampDuration: (optional, maximum 17 minutes) only used by the dimmer accessory, indicating the ramp up/down time when dimming.
• enabled: (optional, default: true) set to false to inhibit the accessory from loading.
• action: (required by the trigger accessory) sets the action selector to be triggered.

(NB. Durations can be specified in days, hours, minutes, seconds or milliseconds. (eg.: "2 days", "2.5h", "5s", "100 ms", etc. ) For more information on allowable formats, please see the ms library)

Functional example config.json

{
  "bridge": {
    "name": "My Home",
    "username": "CC:22:3D:E3:CE:30",
    "port": 51826,
    "pin": "031-45-154"
  },
  
  "description": "My home HomeKit API configuration file",

  "platforms": [
    {
      "platform": "homebridge-cbus.CBus",
      "name": "CBus",
      "client_ip_address": "127.0.0.1",
      "client_controlport": 20023,
      "client_cbusname": "WEBB",
      "client_network": 254,
      "client_application": 56,
      "client_debug": true,

      "platform_export": "my-platform.json",
            
      "accessories": [
        { "type": "light", "id": 0, "name": "Flood" },
        { "type": "light", "id": 1, "name": "Main Bay" },
        { "type": "light", "id": 2, "name": "3rd Bay" },
        { "type": "light", "network": "250", "id": 1, "name": "Outside Light" },
        { "type": "light", "network": "250", "application": "203", "id": 3, "name": "Backdoor" },
			
        { "type": "dimmer", "id": 3, "name": "Closet" },
        
        { "type": "dimmer", "id": 22, "name": "Wake Up Lights", "rampDuration": "10 min"},		
       	    
        { "type": "shutter", "id": 145, "name": "Living Blinds" },
        { "type": "shutter", "id": 142, "name": "Dining Blinds", "invert": "true"},
        
        { "type": "fan", "id": 7, "name": "Kitchen Fan"},
				
        { "type": "motion", "id": 51, "name": "Main" },
			    
        { "type": "security", "application": 208, "id": 1, "name": "Entry Zone" },
			    
        { "type": "switch", "id": "9", "name": "Garden Lights", "activeDuration": "2.5 hrs" },
        
        { "type": "trigger", "application": 202, "id": 0, "action": 1, "name": "recall preset 2" }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "accessories": [ ]
}

Unified Accessory List

If the platform_export property is set to a valid pathname, upon startup homebridge-cbus will export a suggested accessory list. The list will include all groups found in your C-Gate database. By default found groups are disabled, unless they are already defined as enabled in your current config.json file.

It is suggested that you check this file after your first successful run of homebridge with this plug-in loaded. You'll then be able to open the generated file and copy the entries of interest into your config.json file.

Logging

homebridge-cbus has four logging channels:

• cbus:platform: highest level startup/shutdown and fatal error reporting (enabled by default)
• cbus:level: all level change events reported by C-Gate
• cbus:client: all communication with C-Gate
• cbus:db: significant events reported by the database syncing module

On startup, the status of the channels will be determined from the environment variable DEBUG. eg.:

# all C-Bus logging
> DEBUG=cbus:* homebridge
 
# just level change events
> DEBUG=cbus:level homebridge

# very verbose logging from all of homebridge
> DEBUG=* homebridge 

N.B. If provided, the client_debug setting (from config.json) will override the configuration for cbus:client from the environment.

Example logging output

Unit testing

homebridge-cbus uses the excellent tape unit-testing framework.

To run tests:

npm test

To run tests and generate code coverage reports:

npm run test-coverage

Changes Since 0.5.0

• 0.6.4: adds support for trigger accessory

• 0.6.3: Bugfix

• 0.6.2: Bugfix

• 0.6.1:

  • when building the Unified Accessory List, use the unitType of the C-Bus units controlled by the group to make a semi-intelligent guess of the accessory's type.
  • improved support for C-Bus installations with multiple networks

• 0.6.0: relax tests for project name validity

• 0.5.9: adds support for rampDuration (for dimmers) and remove extraneous C-Bus comms when dimming or changing fan speed

• 0.5.8: adds support for fan accessories

• 0.5.7:

  • adds support for switch accessories including optional activeDuration property
  • adds Unified Accessory List export
  • adds support for enabled property on accessories

• 0.5.6: fetch and cache a copy of the C-Gate database for improved logging

• 0.5.5: introduces unit testing and more robust configuration file checking

• 0.5.4: fixes issue where some required files were missing

• 0.5.3: adds support for shutter accessory

• 0.5.2: adds support for security accessory, for PIR presence detectors, typically on application 208

• 0.5.1: adds optional network and application parameters per accessory, allowing accessories to be monitored or controlled across multiple networks and applications.

N.B. If you are upgrading from an ealier version of homebridge-cbus, you may need to remove the files in your ~/.homebridge/persist/ directory before running for the first time due to new device UUIDs.

Contributions

• fork
• create a feature branch
• open a Pull Request

Contributions are surely welcome!