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buzzd

buzzd listens for commands sent via MQTT to play various configurable beeping patterns using an active buzzer connected to a GPIO pin of a Raspberry Pi.

This tool is a rewrite of an unreleased C based version I have been using for quite some time. As the legacy version was lacking flexibility, I rewrote it in Rust to learn something new.

Prerequisites

Active Buzzer

The active buzzer I use buzzes when the GPIO pin is low and is silent if the pin is high. In case other buzzers behave differently, an additional configuration option to invert the pin use might be required.

Real-time Scheduling

buzzd will try to set real-time scheduling policies fo the pattern playback thread to minimize the impact on the playback rhythm caused by other processes. If you are not running as root, add a line to /etc/security/limits.conf - replacing the user with the actual username:

user           -       rtprio         99

Where user is replaced with the username of the user running buzzd.

Configuration

On startup buzzd will try to read it's configuration file buzzd.json. It will try to find it in:

  • the current directory
  • the .config directory in the executing user's home
  • in /etc

JSON structure

Please refer to the example configuration file that comes with buzzd to adapt to your use case. The following parameters can be set at top level:

  • gpio: The GPIO pin the active buzzer is connected to (integer)
  • pause: The pause that will be introduced between repeated patterns in milliseconds (integer)

The connection to the MQTT broker can be setup in the mqtt section:

  • broker: IP address or server name of the MQTT broker, localhost by default - according to the paho-mqtt documentation URIs should work, too (e.g. mqtt://server:port) - but that does not work for me currently
  • topic: The MQTT topic buzzd should react upon, buzzd by default

Patterns

The next section in the configuration file defines a list of beeping patterns. A pattern may look like the following example - note that the comments prefixed with // are here for documentation purposes only, they cannot be included in the actual configuration file as they violate the JSON syntax.

With regards to the pattern name, the name '_' (just the underscore) is a reserved name. It can be used to cancel the playback of the current pattern without triggering a new one.

{
    "name": "ack", // the name of the pattern
    "repeat": 3,   // repeat 3 times by default
    "rhythm": [
        75,        // buzz for 75 milliseconds
        75,        // pause for 75 milliseconds
        75         // buzz for 75 milliseconds
    ]
}

MQTT Commands

To trigger the playback of a configured pattern, publish the pattern name with the configured topic:

mosquitto_pub -h localhost -t actors/buzzer -m "ack"

Provide an additional number of repetitions to override the default value configured with the pattern:

mosquitto_pub -h localhost -t actors/buzzer -m "ack 2"

As noted above, it is possible to cancel any pattern playback currently in process triggering the playback of the reserved cancel pattern:

mosquitto_pub -h localhost -t actors/buzzer -m "_"