On PC, install vgamepad package by running
pip install vgamepad
On RPi, install nodejs and npm package manager
sudo su
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_18.x | bash -
sudo apt install nodejs
Verify the installation by
node -- version
npm --version
Make sure bluetooth is turned on on your PC.
Then, ssh into RPi and run
hciconfig
The bluetooth address is xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx in BD Address section.
hci0: Type: Primary Bus: UART
BD Address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx ACL MTU: 1021:8 SCO MTU: 64:1
UP RUNNING
RX bytes:3482252 acl:11593 sco:0 events:1123 errors:0
TX bytes:175593 acl:1076 sco:0 commands:121 errors:0
Copy that address to pi/main.py and replace it with the current bd_addr variable.
In this setup, we are setting RPi as our server such that the bluetooth socket can bind to this address and listen for connection from PC.
The following steps are copied from this guide video I found really useful. The steps are executed to pair RPi with PC.
On RPi, run the following command
sudo nano /lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service
Add a -C after /usr/libexec/bluetooth/bluetoothd in ExecStart so it looks like
ExecStart=/usr/libexec/bluetooth/bluetoothd -C
Save the file and reboot RPi by running
sudo reboot
After robooting, run
sudo service bluetooth status
Make sure the CGroup field looks like the following
CGroup: /system.slice/bluetooth.service
└─804 /usr/libexec/bluetooth/bluetoothd -C
Then, enter the command to start pairing
sudo bluetoothctl
In the console, run the following commands one by one
power on
pairable on
discoverable on
agent on
default-agent
Then you will be able to find the device on PC and prompted to pair with RPi via bluetooth.
Finally, we have to trust our PC this command on RPi, where <PC MAC address> is shown on the RPi console once connected
trust <PC MAC address>
FPS refers to proximate frequency that the dashboard will update in a second. To change FPS, go to pi/dashboard.py. It basically controls the frequency of that while loop.
Firstly, make sure bd_addr variable is set to your RPi's bluetooth address in main.py and dashboard.py in both pc and pi folder.
In pi folder and run the program that sends raw button inputs to PC
python main.py
Then in another terminal at pi/dashboard-backend run following command to start the server that transfers outgauge data from python code to frontend
npm start
Then in another terminal at pi folder run the following to start python program that receives outgauge data
python dashboard.py
Finally, open pi/dashboard-frontend/index.html in the browser and set it to full screen to show the dashboard.
Start the game, make sure the Outgauge support at Options->Others is enabled. The port should be 4444 and IP Address should be 127.0.0.1.
In pc folder run the following to receive the data from pi and control the game
python main.py
Then, in another terminal run the following to write game data continuously to a file
python outgauge.py
Finally, in another terminal run the following to read from the file and send data to RPi
python dashboard.py