Using Applescript and cURL to control Philips Hue lighting system

Question

I see that it is possible to control Philips Hue lights with commands such as this:

Make an HTTP POST request of the following to (your hue's website here)

{"username": "YourAppName", "devicetype": "YourAppName"} If you have not pressed the button on the Hue Hub you will receive an error like this;

{"error":{"type":101,"address":"/","description":"link button not pressed"}} Press the link button on the hub and try again and you should receive;

{"success":{"username":"key"}} The key above will be an md5 string, remember this, you'll need it in all future requests

--but I'm not sure how to use Applescript to speak that language--I know you can use "do shell script" and possibly cURL in there as well, but, I'm falling apart on actually getting the code to work correctly.

Any thoughts?

I tried do shell script "curl -d \"username\": \"me\", \"devicetype\": \"hue\" http://192.168.1.112/api" which says invalid json. I also used a Chrome extension called Simple Rest Client, which does allow the code to work. — Mississippi Joe, Nov 11 '12 at 18:51
Please don't edit your question to add an answer. Just add the answer below and, after the required waiting period, select it as correct. — , Dec 24 '12 at 19:26

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Nov 17 '12 at 21:46

1

For shell script try this:

curl -d "{\"username\": \"yourname\", \"devicetype\": \"yourhuename\"}" [not a link]http://hueIpAddr/api

edited Nov 17 '12 at 21:46

Max Shmelev

3,774
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answered Nov 17 '12 at 21:22

TopCat

11
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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 22 '13 at 21:26

I was able to get my python script to use a curl request to control the lights via subprocess (similar to do shell script, I think), using:

curl --request PUT --data \'{"on":true, "xy":[0.4370,0.3706],"bri":255}\' http://{url}/api/{username}/lights/1/state

To create a user with curl, you should likely change the code to look like:

curl --request POST --data \'{"devicetype":"your_devicetype", "username":"your_username"}\' http://{url}/api/

To be fair, I haven't tried that with curl, as I am working on moving to urllib2 in python. Hope this helps.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 29 '12 at 02:10

Another shell script with a helpful function for setting the color via HSB and transition time.

#!/bin/sh
#
# Register "patniemeyer" key with this bridge
#
# % curl -d '{"username": "patniemeyer", "devicetype": "Philips hue"}' http://192.168.1.179/api
# [{"success":{"username":"patniemeyer"}}]
#

KEY='patniemeyer'
IP='192.168.1.179'

#
# Light number, hue, saturation, brightness, transition time
#
# hue 0-65535
# sat 0-255?
# transition time 1/10 seconds
#
lightNHSBT() 
{
    _lightNum=$1
    _hue=$2
    _sat=$3
    _brightness=$4
    _ttime=$5
    curl --request PUT --data "{\"hue\":$_hue, \"sat\":$_sat, \"bri\":$_brightness, \"on\":true, \"transitiontime\":$_ttime}" http://$IP/api/$KEY/lights/$_lightNum/state/
}

#
# CIE 1931 X,Y colors
# Light number, X, Y, brightness, transition time
#
# transition time 1/10 seconds
#
lightNXYBT() 
{
    _lightNum=$1
    _x=$2
    _y=$3
    _brightness=$4
    _ttime=$5
    curl --request PUT --data "{\"xy\":[$_x,$_y], \"bri\":$_brightness, \"on\":true, \"transitiontime\":$_ttime}" http://$IP/api/$KEY/lights/$_lightNum/state/
}

# 
for f in 1 2 3 4 5 6 
do
    lightNHSBT $f 0 255 255 5  # full red
done

Using Applescript and cURL to control Philips Hue lighting system

3 Answers3