Home Automation

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The home automation includes many different functions such as an alarm system, garage door opener, siren and camera control, and user management.

The project contains the following repositories:

Raspberry Pi Clients

Servers

  • Alarm System API - Back-end server that handles apis for the alarm system. Main functions are:
    • It saves the alarm state (armed or not armed).
    • It receives reports from the motion sensor raspberry pi clients when motion is detected.
    • It will turn the siren if motion is detected while the alarm is armed.
    • It will send emails, sms and make phone calls when motion is detected while alarm is armed.
    • It will ask the camera api server to take photos when motion is detected while alarm is armed.
  • Authentication - Back-end server that handles authentications and permissions. Main functions are:
    • It issues JWT (Javascript Web Token) to other back-end servers, UI and raspberry pi clients.
    • It allows creation of new users, enabling/disabling access, changing permissions and more.
  • Camera API - Back-end server that handles the camera apis. Main functions are:
    • It provides a list of all taken photos.
    • It accepts requests from the user to take photos.
    • It accepts requests from the alarm system api to take photos when motion is detected or garage door was opened while armed.
    • It sends push notification to the raspberry pi camera clients asking to take photo(s).
    • It provides an api to store and fetch the photos.
  • Garage Door API - Back-end server that handles apis for the garage door. Main functions are:
    • It saves the garage door state (opened or closed).
    • It sends commands to open or close the garage door.
    • It notifies the users if the garage door is left open.
    • It will notify the alarm server api server when the door is opening or closing if the alarm is armed.
  • Notifications - Back-end server that handles outgoing communications. Main functions are:
    • It sends emails using Mailgun if garage door is left open, garage door is opening or motion is detected while alarm is armed.
    • It sends text messages if one of the previous conditions are met.
    • It makes phone calls if one of the previous conditions are met.
  • UI - React-Redux - Front-end client using React-Redux and Material UI that interacts with the different API servers.

Installation Instructions for the Server Micro-Services

Prerequisites:

git clone <repository git url>
  • Step 2: Create a new Heroku app.
cd <cloned repository root directory>
heroku apps:create <app name>
  • Step 3: Push the cloned repository to the newly created Heroku app.
git push heroku master
  • Step 4: Each server app requires a set of environment variables in order to run. Set the required environment variables using the following command: 
heroku config:set <KEY>=<VALUE>
  • Step 5: Scale the web dyno by running the following command:
heroku ps:scale web=1 -a <app name>

Installation Instructions for the Raspberry Pi Clients

  • Step 1: Download and install Raspbian. Recommended: Raspbian Stretch Light.
  • Step 2: Login via LAN:

    Username: pi.
    Password: raspberry.

    It is a highly recommended to change the default password using the following command: 

    passwd

  • Step 3: Enable SSH, enable camera, setup locale, change timezone, change username and password, and setup wifi using the following command: 

    sudo raspi-config

    Once SSH is enabled, you can now find the IP address of the raspberry pi and connect to it using the following command: 
    ssh -o PubkeyAuthentication=no pi@<IP address>
  • Step 4: Download and install updates. 
    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y upgrade
sudo apt-get -y dist-upgrade
  • Step 5: Download and install git. 
    sudo apt-get install git
  • Step 6: Install NVM. 
    cd ~
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.34.0/install.sh | bash
source ~/.profile
nvm install v10

    Node JS v10.15.1 is the latest version that ran successfully on Raspbian.

  • Step 7: Clone one or more of the raspberry pi client repositories. 
    git clone git://github.com/OronNadiv/alarm-siren-raspberry-client.git
git clone git://github.com/OronNadiv/camera-raspberry-client.git
git clone git://github.com/OronNadiv/garage-door-raspberry-client.git
git clone git://github.com/OronNadiv/motion-sensor-raspberry-client.git

    From within the cloned repositories, install the required dependencies: 

    export NODE_ENV=production
npm install

  • Step 8: Install execution script. Each raspberry pi client repository contains an execution template script. Copy and edit the script in nano. 
    cp <repository>/scripts/*.sh ~
  • Step 9: Download and install Supervisor. Then copy the configuration file. 
    sudo apt-get install supervisor
sudo cp <repository>/scripts/*.conf /etc/supervisor/conf.d/

    • Generating private and public keys

    Both the servers and clients require public and private keys in order to uniquely identify them when connecting to the authentication api server.

    Here are the instructions to create them:

    openssl genrsa -out private_key.pem 2048
openssl rsa -in private_key.pem -pubout -out public_key.pem

Built and maintained by Oron Nadiv.