EventGhost + EventGhost for Android

Apps & Remote Access
1

I have been wanting to do more complex control panels for my Android and add the ability to control other things as well (my A/V rack, starting and stopping music and video playback on my Windows 7 machine, etc).

I just came across this program and it seems pretty slick:

It is an extender for the open source EventGhost program (http://www.eventghost.net/) which “is an advanced, easy to use and extensible automation tool for MS Windows.”

In about three minutes I had created a simple layout on my android and was picking up events on EventGhost in Windows.

I am looking into writing a Vera plugin for EventGhost which should allow full control over Vera. Unfortunately, it would have to be in Python which I haven’t touched for a few years. Hopefully my Python will come back quickly!

There seem to be some pretty cool features of EventGhost for Android. It looks like it can grab your phone’s location and execute events with that. For instance, you should be able to have an event execute when your network location says you are in your driveway. Although for that example you would have to have your EventGhost port forwarded so you could reach it on your phone’s network and not wifi.

The second disadvantage is that you need to have the windows machine running. I’m planning on using the Vera Wake-on-lan feature to turn on the machine when I need it. My windows machine is always on when I’m using my A/V gear so that is OK with me.

Something similar appears to be possible with Girder 5 and Andre (a native Android app for Girder). I will be creating a separate post on that. I’m not sure which solution is better but I am interested in pursuing both.

2

Keep us posted. I was using a similar feature with Tasker in Android, so when was away from my home, I could trigger a location event so wifi on my phone would turn off, then back on when i’m home, etc… i’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

3

@big517, will do. I have a couple other plugins I’ve been working on (mostly the Denon) that are taking most of my available development time. But I’m going to try to put together a xPL plugin that would allow communication between eventghost and Vera. Once that is done I’ll probably post a how to that explains getting it all setup.

4

I just posted a (pretty simple) plugin for EventGhost for one way Vera control. Right now it basically just controls lights. More to come though!

http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=7881.0

5

Adding a link in case anyone searches for EventGhost and this thread pops up. I have finally learned enough about event loops in EventGhost to make a full fledged plugin. Please see the thread I linked earlier for the code:

http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,7881.0.html

Now you can send commands and receive events from Vera. This opens up a lot of additional functionality to Vera, including things such as triggering scenes from media player actions (XBMC pauses - turn up lights in the living room), and adding in more complex notifications (Growl, etc), without having to mess with code.