LifxController

This is a demo app for the talk I gave on October 26th, 2016 at ChicagoElixir

The app serves a simple web app available at http://lifx.local:8800 for controlling a Lifx lightbulb. It runs on a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B with a Canakit Wifi dongle using Nerves to build the embedded Linux/Elixir environment.

Getting Started

First things first, you'll need to install the nerves system.

mix archive.install https://github.com/nerves-project/archives/raw/master/nerves_bootstrap.ez

Next clone this repo git clone https://github.com/NationalAssociationOfRealtors/lifx_controller.git

Copy default.env to .env and change the variables as needed to set your SSID and PSK.

If you plan on burning an SD Card and running it on a Raspberry Pi, make sure to set NERVES=true otherwise keep it as NERVES=false.

To build Nerves systems you must run Linux, I also recommend running the app in a Linux environment, as it hasn't been tested outside of that.

If you are running the app locally in a VM you will need to adjust the INTERFACE variable. Run ifconfig in your VM to figure out the correct interface. Also, because the Lifx library uses UDP broadcasting you will most likely need to setup the VM network in Bridged Adaptor mode and select the network interface from your host machine

To burn your Nerves app to an SD Card:

• Install your enviornment variables source .env you'll need to do this for each new terminal window
• Install dependencies with mix do deps.get, deps.compile
• Create firmware with mix firmware
• Burn to an SD card with mix firmware.burn
• Install SD Card in Pi
• Power On
• Browse to http://lifx.local:8800

The default settings for this app pipe the Elixir console over the Raspberry Pi's serial console, use a USB -> Serial cable, like this https://www.adafruit.com/products/954 to view boot messages and access the Elixir console. Running screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200 is a super easy way to access the serial console on your host machine.

To run the app locally

• Install your enviornment variables source .env you'll need to do this for each new terminal window
• Install dependencies with mix do deps.get, deps.compile
• run iex -S mix to get an interactive console
• Browse to http://lifx.local:8800

Learn more

• Official docs: https://hexdocs.pm/nerves/getting-started.html
• Official website: http://www.nerves-project.org/
• Discussion Slack elixir-lang #nerves (Invite)
• Source: https://github.com/nerves-project/nerves
• Lifx Library http://github.crtlabs.org/lifx
• mDNS Library http://github.crtlabs.org/mdns