Controling Homeautomation devices using wifi presence

This guide is quite untested. I'd be happy to get some input on it in the forum at forum.excito.net/viewforum.php

This is a guide describing how to set up a device in Homeautomation that is automatically turned on or off based on whether a certain MAC address is connected to B3's wifi or not. This could then be used in the Homeautomation scheduling to turn other devices on or off based on this information, for example to lit up your home automatically when coming into wifi range.

First you will have to set up a "dummy" device for each wifi unit. Do this by going into the device list in Homeautomations settings and make a new RAW device there. The only thing you need to put in is a description for the device (and optionally icons too). Remember the ID's of the new dummy devices (you can see the IDs in the device list).

Now, copy the text below into /usr/local/bin/hostapd_ha.sh.

#!/bin/bash

HomeAutomationUrl="http://192.168.168.1/homeautomation/"

# Devices that affects HomeAutomation
homeDevices[0]="84:00:d2:e4:3b:9f" #Xperia Ray
homeDevices[1]="d0:df:c7:fd:8d:ea" #Galaxy Tab

# HomeAutomation device ids
HomeAutomationDeviceIds[0]="20" #Xperia Ray
HomeAutomationDeviceIds[1]="21" #Galaxy Tab

connected="AP-STA-CONNECTED"
disconnected="AP-STA-DISCONNECTED"

countHomeDevices=${#homeDevices[*]}

date >> /var/log/hostapd.log

for (( i=0; i<=$(( $countHomeDevices -1 )); i++ )); do

  if [ $3 = "${homeDevices[$i]}" ]; then

    connectionState=0

    if [ $2 = $connected ]; then
      connectionState=1
      echo "$3 Connected!" >> /var/log/hostapd.log
    else if [ $2 = $disconnected ]; then
        echo "$3 Disconnected" >> /var/log/hostapd.log
      else
        echo "What happened now?" >> /var/log/hostapd.log
      fi
    fi

    $(wget -O /dev/null -q ""${HomeAutomationUrl}"ajaxinterface.php?do=toggleStatus&status="${connectionState}"&deviceid="${HomeAutomationDeviceIds[$i]}"" )
  fi

done

Make the file executable using "chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/hostapd_ha.sh". Edit the HomeAutomationUrl, homeDevices and HomeAutomationDeviceIds to your needs.

Included in the hostapd package (the program which turns B3 into an access point) there is a utility called hostapd_cli that is able to trigger events when devices are connected and disconnected. What we want is to start hostapd_cli as a daemon and tell it to run our script above upon connections/disconnections. To to this, copy the text below into /etc/init.d/hostapd_cli:

#!/bin/sh

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: hostapd_cli
# Required-Start: $remote_fs ifup-br0 hostapd
# Required-Stop: $remote_fs
# Should-Start:
# Should-Stop:
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: Utility to trigger events based on connects/disconnects
# Description:
### END INIT INFO

PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
DAEMON_SBIN=/usr/sbin/hostapd_cli
NAME=hostapd_cli
DESC="hostapd cli"
PIDFILE=/var/run/hostapd_cli.pid

[ -x "$DAEMON_SBIN" ] || exit 0

DAEMON_OPTS="-B -a/usr/local/bin/hostapd_ha.sh"

. /lib/lsb/init-functions

case "$1" in
  start)
    log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
    start-stop-daemon --start --oknodo --quiet --exec "$DAEMON_SBIN" \
      -- $DAEMON_OPTS >/dev/null
    log_end_msg "$?"
    ;;
  stop)
    log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
    start-stop-daemon --stop --oknodo --quiet --exec "$DAEMON_SBIN"
    log_end_msg "$?"
    ;;
  restart|force-reload)
    $0 stop
    sleep 8
    $0 start
    ;;
  status)
    status_of_proc "$DAEMON_SBIN" "$NAME"
    exit $?
    ;;
  *)
    N=/etc/init.d/$NAME
    echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|force-reload|status}" >&2
    exit 1
    ;;
esac

exit 0

Make the file executable using "chmod 755 /etc/init.d/hostapd_cli". Now configure this daemon to start automatically when booting using "update-rc.d hostapd_cli defaults". Also start the daemon now by simply running "/etc/init.d/hostapd_cli start".