This repository contains all code for my custom made Apple HomeKit compatible WiFi environment sensor using a NodeMCU board and the BME280 sensor. It includes the ESP8266 code, the Homebridge plugin to allow it to be used in HomeKit and a webservice in Node.js used to store and manage sensor data.
A more detailed description of the whole project can be found on my website. The blog post is only available in German right now. If you are not able to read German you might have some luck asking our future AI overlords for a translation.
The client code is merely an .INO file you can load into Arduino IDE and deploy to your NodeMCU/ESP8266. You will also need the ESP8266 Arduino core to enable ESP8266 support in the Arduino environment. On top of that the code is using the Adafruit Unified Sensor Driver and the Adafruit BME 280 Library. The blog post mentioned above contains further details on how everything is set up, especially the corresponding hardware, but what the code basically does is:
- Connect to a given WiFi
- Get sensor data from the BME280
- Push the sensor data to a webservice (see Server)
- Go to deep sleep for a specified amount of time after which to start from the beginning
There are three configuration parameters. The first two being the SSID and password for the WiFi to connect to and the last one the URL to the webservice (see Server) to push sensor data to.
The server is implemented in Node.js and uses a SQLite database to store sensor data. In my scenario it is running on a Raspberry Pi which is also serving my Homebridge installation. The webservice exposes the following endpoints:
POST /data
Expects a POST request with Content-Type application/x-www-form-urlencoded and temparature (t) in degrees, relative humidity (h) in percent, air pressure (p) in hPa and a unique device id (id) in the payload (i.e. t=21.0&h=42&p=1000&id=12:34:56:78:90:AB). See the client code for details.
GET /data/latest/{deviceId}
Gets the latest sensor data for the specified deviceId from the database and returns a JSON representation of it. This is primarily called by the plugin. Using the optional GET parameter callback a function name to wrap the response payload can be provided, this can for example be used by JSONP requests.
GET /data/all/{deviceId}
Gets all sensor data for the specified deviceId from the database and returns a JSON representation of it. Using the optional GET parameter callback a function name to wrap the response payload can be provided, this can for example be used by JSONP requests.
GET /devices
Gets a list of all devices available (having sensor data in the database) and returns a JSON representation of it. Using the optional GET parameter callback a function name to wrap the response payload can be provided, this can for example be used by JSONP requests.
DELETE /data/{deviceId}
Deletes all stored data for the given deviceId from the database.
The code for the Homebridge plugin which exposes the sensor data to HomeKit. It only provides temperature and humidity information for now as air pressure is not yet a characteristic officially supported by HomeKit. When adding an accessory using this plugin to the Homebridge configuration you have the following configuration options:
accessory: (Mandatory) Needs to be "WiFiEnvironmentSensor".
name: (Mandatory) Whatever name you want the accessory to have.
endpoint: (Mandatory) Endpoint for the webservice (see Server) to get the sensor data from.
deviceId: (Mandatory) The unique device id for the sensor (as given by the client code).
manufacturer: (Optional) Your name or whatever you want to show up in HomeKit as being the manufacturer of the accessory (Defaults to "Acme Corporation").
name_temperature: (Optional) Name for the temperature characteristic (Defaults to "Temperature").
name_humidity: (Optional) Name for the humidity characteristic (Defaults to "Humidity").
name_pressure: (Optional) Name for the air pressure characteristic (Defaults to "Air Pressure" but is not yet used anyway).
A minimal example configuration would thus look like this:
{
"accessory": "WiFiEnvironmentSensor",
"name": "WiFi Environment Sensor",
"endpoint": "http://localhost:3200/data",
"deviceId": "12:34:56:78:90:AB”
}