glowshow

Controlling the PiGlow remotely via a simple socket server.

These simple scripts help you get a server running on the RaspberryPi. You can send commands to it from another device (e.g. PC or iPhone/iPad using Pythonista) and set patterns, the speed of change and brightness.

This is version 0.1, so a bit basic, but more will follow!

PiGlow setup

First of all, go to @pimoroni for details of how to get the PiGlow running: http://github.com/pimoroni/piglow

Running the server

Once the PiGlow is all set up, you can run this (in the server sub directory):

python server.py

This runs the socket server running on port 13379. (Hardcoded for now.) It will sit there waiting for commands.

Running client commands

On your other device (or the RPi itself) you can now send commands using glowclient.send_command. (See client/glowserver.py)

To set a pattern:

# Send a pattern from the client to the glowserver
host = ("raspberrypi.home", 13379)
pattern = [1,0,0,0,0,0, # Arm 1
           1,0,0,0,0,0, # Arm 2
           1,0,0,0,0,0] # Arm 3
command = { 'cmd' : 'set_pattern', 'value': pattern }
glowclient.send_command(host, command)

The pattern is mapped to the LEDs on the Pi in a way that's a bit easier to understand than the mapping in piglow.py

Command queue

Each command received is stored in a queue on the server side and handled in turn, so you can fire off a sequence of patterns from the client and sit back and watch them cycle through on the PiGlow.

You can control the speed of the cycle like this from the client:

# Set the speed
speed = 50
command = { 'cmd': 'set_speed', 'value' : speed }
glowclient.send_command(host, command)

You can also set the brightness:

# Set the brightness
brightness = 75
command = { 'cmd': 'set_brightness', 'value' : brightness }
glowclient.send_command(host, command)

Example Script

Please take a look at client/glowshow_example.py for an example of how to send commands from the client once the server is running.