rbn

This is a bit of software that was built for the raspberry pi, but should work on any linux box. It's good at doing things like passing data from bluetooth low energy devices over a websocket connection, or sending data from a connected arduino up to firebase. It consists of two parts - interfaces and transports.

Interfaces

Interfaces allow the pi to collect data from other devices. Currently, the following interfaces are supported:

• rbn-ble - bluetooth low energy
• rbn-rfid - usb-based rfid readers
• rbn-arduino - arduino over serial

To add an interface, just add the interface's name in the dependancies section of your package.json file and run rbn-base.js. Make sure to use latest for the version if you want the package to auto-update. If your interface has options you can configure, you can set them in config.json.

Transports

Got some data from an interface? Awesome. Transports let you send that data somewhere on the internet.

• rbn-websockets - uses websockets
• rbn-http - http POST requests
• rbn-firebase - firebase

The process for adding a transport is the same as that for an interface.

Easy Mode

1. Install raspbian on your Pi.
2. SSH onto your pi.
3. Run curl -h http://...
4. Run sudo node rbn-pi.js

Configuration

To add or remove interfaces and transports, and configure the behavior of the grid, change the options in config.json. By default, config.json looks like this:

{
  "autoUpdate": false,
  "runOnBoot": true,
  "transports": {
    "rbn-websocket": {
        "endpoint": "http://robin-grid.omrdev.com"
    }
  },
  "interfaces": {
    "rbn-rfid": {}
  }
}

Besides the interfaces and transports objects, the supported options are:

• autoUpdate - update all modules automagically when a new version is released (default: true)
• runOnBoot - run the grid automatically when the OS boots up using forever (default: true)

Streaming logs and debugging

Every module emits logs on a debug namespace equal to the name of the module. There is also a base namespace with the most general logs. To listen on a namespace, run pass a DEBUG argument to node, like so:

sudo DEBUG=base,websocket,ble node rbn-pi.js

If you're looking to stream logs out to a service, you should write a transport to do so!

Contributing

The Robin OS is designed to make it easy to add custom modules.

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Creating an interface

Your module should export a single class. Your constructor will be called.