BlinkStick and Raspberry Pi

BlinkStick Examples

The great thing about BlinkStick is that it supports a wide range of programming languages, including Python. Controlling BlinkStick boards via Python is not very complicated. The simple script in Listing 1 can give you a general idea of how this is done. This script is written for BlinkStick Strip, but you can easily adapt it for other BlinkStick boards.

01 #!/usr/bin/env python
02 import random
03 from blinkstick import blinkstick
04 bstick = blinkstick.find_first()
05
06 while True:
07     LED=random.randrange(0, 7)
08     R=random.randrange(0, 255)
09     G=random.randrange(0, 255)
10     B=random.randrange(0, 255)
11     bstick.pulse(red=R, green=G, blue=B, index=LED, repeats=1)

Even if you are new to Python, you shouldn't have any problem understanding what the script does: It makes LEDs pulse with random colors in random order. To do this, the script first imports two libraries: random and blinkstick. It then uses the blinkstick.find_first() function to detect the first connected BlinkStick board. The random.randrange function is used to generate random red, green, and blue values as well as generate an LED index number. Finally, the bstick.pulse function is used to pulse the specified LED with the color consisting of the randomly generated RGB values. This block is wrapped into an infinite loop that runs until the script is interrupted. You can use this simple example as a starting point for your own scripts, and the Python API documentation [2] provides further information on programming BlinkStick via Python.

Watching randomly pulsating LEDs on the BlinkStick boards can be mesmerizing but hardly practical. The next example does something more practical. Riding a bicycle in strong wind is rarely a pleasure (unless, of course, you have a tail wind). So, before you venture out for a bike ride, you might want to check the wind speed; a simple Bash shell script can help you with that (Listing 2).

01 #!/bin/bash
02 city="Berlin"
03 country="DE"
04 appid="Your OpenWeatherMap API Key"
05 interval="600"
06 i="0"
07 led_number="8"
08 while true
09 do
10   windspeed=$(curl "http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/
      weather?q=$city,$country&appid=$appid" | jq '.wind.speed')
11   windspeed_int=${windspeed%.*}
12   if [ $windspeed_int -le 5 ]; then
13     while [ $i -lt $windspeed_int ]
14     do
15     blinkstick green --index $i --brightness 15
16     i=$[$i+1]
17     done
18   elif [ $windspeed_int -gt 5 ] && [ $windspeed_int -le 7 ] ; then
19     while [ $i -lt $windspeed_int ]
20     do
21     blinkstick yellow --index $i --brightness 15
22     i=$[$i+1]
23     done
24   else
25     while [ $i -lt $led_number ]
26     do
27     blinkstick red --index $i --brightness 15
28     i=$[$i+1]
29     done
30   fi
31   sleep $interval
32   i="0"
33   while [ $i -lt $led_number ]
34     do
35     blinkstick off --index $i
36     i=$[$i+1]
37     done
38   i="0"
39 done

The script fetches and parses the weather data from the OpenWeatherMap service to obtain the current wind speed in meters per second (mps). It then uses the if … elif … else conditional statement to represent the wind speed on the BlinkStick Strip board. This condition is based on the following logic: (1) if the wind speed is less than or equal to 5mps (~16 ft/sec), the LEDs are set to green and the number of LEDs indicates the speed; (2) when the speed is greater than 5mps but less than or equal to 7mps, the LEDs are set to yellow, with the number of LEDs indicating the speed; (3) if the wind speed is greater than 7mps, all LEDs are set to red.

For this script to work you need to obtain a unique API key by signing up for the OpenWeatherMap service [3]. Then, replace the placeholder value of the appid variable in the script with the actual API key. To fetch and parse the weather data, the script relies on the curl and jq tools, so you must install them on your system.

The script performs several simple tasks. It first fetches weather data in the JSON format and pipes the output to the jq tool, which extracts the wind speed value. This float value is then converted to an integer and used as a part of the conditional statement. To turn on the appropriate number of LEDs, the script uses the while … do loop with a simple counter. A similar loop at the end of the script is used to reset all LEDs by turning them off. By default, the script fetches and parses weather data every 10 minutes, but you can change that by specifying the value of the interval variable in milliseconds.

Final Word

Although they're slightly more expensive than a handful of regular LEDs, BlinkStick boards have a lot going for them. They feature multiple bright RGB LEDs that can be controlled individually, and you have several BlinkStick models from which to choose. They feature a simple API and support many popular programming languages; moreover, both BlinkStick hardware and software are open source. The commands and scripts described in this article give you an idea of BlinkStick's capabilities, and you'll find more examples of how to use BlinkStick in the project's GitHub wiki [4].