hue meets beacon: Use Bluetooth LE beacons to switch your Philips hue lights

hue meets beacon: Use Bluetooth LE beacons to switch your Philips hue lights

Without hue functionality app just shows the user which room he entered.

The hue functionality is only for experienced hue users, since it utilizes hue sensors and rules which have to be defined externally.

Given rules and sensors are set up, only 6 steps are needed:

1) Define rooms (+ icon and swipe to delete) and associate them to sensors and sensor values

2) Scan beacons (Bluetooth icon) you want to use

3) Adjust the min Rssi below which a beacon shouldn't be considered anymore.

This is for fine tuning, in case the beacon signal can be read outside the defined room.

4) Associate beacons to rooms (click on list item when not scanning)

5) Register app (bridge icon) at the bridge and enable hue in preferences

6) Press start (play icon)

hue sensor type used: CLIPGenericStatus

In debug mode a log is shown on the screen.

Refresh icon reloades hue bridge IP.

Permissions:

BLUETOOTH: Necessary for scanning for BT devices

INTERNET: Necessary for contacting hue bridge und upnp for getting hue bridge IP

RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED: Necessary when option start scanning on boot is used

ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION: Necessary to be able to receive beacon address

ACCESS_WIFI_STATE: Necessary to get informed when home wifi network is in reach

CHANGE_WIFI_STATE: Necessary to be able to scan for wifi networks in preferences dialog

Location Service must have been turned on in Settings/Location in order to be able to scan BT devices.

In order to optimize battery usage two features are implemented:

1) A home wifi network can be selected. Only when connected to this wifi hueSwitchBeacon scans for beacons

2) Sensors are used (step or gravity) to recognize that phone moved / is stationary. If phone is stationary

scan is stopped temporarily until movement is recognized again.

The scan can always be stopped by opening the app and pushing stop button on beacon page.

hueSwitch Beacon is tested on Nexus 4 (Lollipop) and Nexus 5X (Marshmallow).

It should work on 4.3 devices as well, but this is not tested (feedback appreciated)

Have fun with the location aware hue switch...