K2Audio Keene Electronics Kira with HA-Bridge

SET UP BWS Systems HA bridge for use with Keene Kira products

At the time or writing HA Bridge is an absolutely excellent FREE home automation program. We have tried a few and so far this is street ahead of the rest. And it can be used with most of the Keene 'Kira' range of products.

The HA Bridge program must have taken someone a lot of time to produce, if you use it and it does what you want we would strongly recommend that you make a donation to BWS Systems for theiir time and effort. There is a link at the bottom oftheir home page.

http://bwssystems.com/

https://github.com/bwssytems/ha-bridge

Assumptions

you have the HABridge panel open in a browser in front of you.

It is saving and loading correctly and if using Linux permissions have been set

See the end of this document for a crib sheet on setting up a Raspberry Pi 3 with HA Bridge.

Example

Turn on SKY box and TV.

(you have a Kira 128 or KiraCC with the IR codes to turn on the Sky box stored into location 1 and the IR code to turn on the TV stored into locatio 21. kira IP address is 192.168.100.123 and the udp data port is the default of 65432)

On HA Bridge click on add/edit

You are presented with an unpopulated device page

Name set to 'SKY TV' (or something easy for Alexa to recognise)

Device type UDP

in 'ON' items...

type UDP Device

Target Item udp://192.168.100.123:65432/cmdT001

Content Type text/plain

click 'add to add it

In the 'ON' items a second line appears

in the new line

type UDP Device

Target Item udp://192.168.100.123:65432/cmdT021

Content Type text/plain

and again click add

At the top of the page click the green 'update bridge' button

You will see a line of buttons with the name SKY TV

The 'ON' button relates to the 2 codes you just entered. The dim and off were not configured here.

Click the 'ON' button and the Sky box and TV should turn on. Assuming of course that the Kira is there and set up correctly.

Amazon echo (dot)

Now tell Alexa 'Alexa find my devices' it will take around 30 seconds but should come back with the devices that you have set up, i.e SKY TV

You should now be able to say 'Alexa switch on SKY TV

and as she is a good girl she will do it.

OTHER codes you can store

You can also use full IR code strings the codes do not have to be stored so a stadard Kira can be used you do not have to have one that can store codes.

eg for SKY button 1 (standard Kira)

udp://192.168.100.45:65432/K 241e 0A6A 0378 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 0378 01BC 0378 0378 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 0378 0378 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 0378 01BC 01BC 0378 0378 0378 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 01BC 0378 2000

when you click 'add' to add the button a second line appears if you enter the target info the another botton eg 2 you can also enter a delay to simulate a sequance of button preesses say 200 (mS)

button 2

Similarly for a third button (button 3) again with a 200mS delay

This would change a SkyHD box to channel 123

Other Kira devices you can use

Relays ON / OFF in a KiraCC or IPMSW1

put the code to turn ON the relay into the ON button and put the code to turn off the relay into the OFF button

Now you could now say Alexa turn ON xxxxx and Alexa turn OFF xxxxx

KiraQ

You can send the full IR codes much like a standard Kira to a KiraQ and that will control the SKY box.. You can also do udp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:65432/cmdCTQ192.168.100.123 to set the SKY box type to Q and the SKY box IP to 192.168.100.123 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address of the KiraQ

Setting up a Raspberry Pi to use HA Bridge

Assumptions

Fresh Out of the box operating system, Network has been set up and that java is installed (should already be installed)

Preparation

Copy ha-bridge.jar file to a USB memory stick along with a text file containing the start text (See below). Once it has the file plug this memory stick into the Pi.

Use either Wireless OR wired Ethernet.

Make a note of the IP address.

Download the latest ha-bridge jar file from BWSSystems

Use PCManFM to create a new directory in home/pi called habridge

so you now have home/pi/habridge

Copy the jar file to that directory

Now open Terminal to create a folder in the habridge directorycalled data.

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cd /home/pi/habridge

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ mkdir data

You need to create a new service file for the habridge program so that it can be started and stopped correctly. This needs to be done via the command line using Terminal.

use the terminal editor to create the new service file as below.

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cd /etc/systemd/system

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo nano habridge.service

(copy text below to the new file - make sure jar version matches the file you downloaded 4.1.4 at time of writing) You can copy / paste this from the USB memory stick. PCManFM to nano using right click.

[Unit]

Description=HA Bridge

Wants=network.target

After=network.target

[Service]

Type=simple

ExecStart=/usr/bin/java -jar -Dconfig.file=/home/pi/habridge/data/habridge.config /home/pi/habridge/ha-bridge-4.1.4.jar

[Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target

click ctrl X and answer Y (return) to save

Now reload services

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo systemctl daemon-reload

start habridge service

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo systemctl start habridge.service

set to start at boot.

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo systemctl enable habridge.service

now check it is running

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ systemctl status habridge.service

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ systemctl is-active habridge.service

Finally you need to allow read /write permisions for all to the HABridge directory

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cd /home/pi/habridge

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo chmod -R 666 data

Assuming all is OK

Got to another machine on your network

Start a browser and type http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:80 into the address bar of the browser

Where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP adress of your module, (you noted itearlier)

You should see the HA Bridge start page

Before doing anything else you need to change the save location of the database

Click on bridge control.

and change the save location of the dadatbase to the habridge directory

/home/pi/habridge/data/device.db

Now everything will be nice and tidy in the one location

Try adding a test device and check that everything saves OK.

Finally Check permissions with

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo ls -l /home/pi/habridge/data/device.db

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo ls -l /home/pi/habridge/data/habridge.config

They should both come back as rw-rw-rw.

If not...

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo chmod /home/pi/habridge/data/device.db

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo chmod /home/pi/habridge/data/habridge.config

HA Bridge software with Keene KIRA