Simple Web Control

You can control PiFace Relay Plus from a web browser (or any network enabled device) using the simplewebcontrol.py tool.

You can start the tool by running the following command on your Raspberry Pi:

$ python3 /usr/share/doc/python3-pifacerelayplus/examples/simplewebcontrol.py

This will start a simple web server on port 8000 which you can access using a web browser.

Type the following into the address bar of a browser on any machine in the local network:

http://192.168.1.3:8000

Note

Relace 192.168.1.3 with the IP address of your Raspberry Pi.

It will return a JSON object describing the current state of PiFace Relay Plus:

{"relay_port": 0, "x_port": 0}

Controlling Relays

You can set the relay port (on board 0) using the URL:

http://192.168.1.61:8000/?b0_relay_port=0xaa

Changing Port

You can specify which port you would like simplewebcontrol.py to use with:

$ python3 /usr/share/doc/python3-pifacedigitalio/examples/simplewebcontrol.py --port 12345

Board Initialisation

The web controller automatically initialises the board. If this does not suit your application then you can try the no_init_board flag:

$ python3 /usr/share/doc/python3-pifacedigitalio/examples/simplewebcontrol.py --no_init_board

Multiple Boards

You can specify multiple boards with the num-boards flag:

$ python3 /usr/share/doc/python3-pifacedigitalio/examples/simplewebcontrol.py --num-boards=3

Control them like so:

http://192.168.1.61:8000/?b0_relay_port=0xaa&b1_relay_port=0xaa&b2_relay_port=0xaa

Masks

Instead of setting the relay port values you can send in bit-masks. This can be useful if you only want to set individual relays without having to read/write:

http://192.168.1.61:8000/?b0_relay_port__and=0x0f
http://192.168.1.61:8000/?b0_relay_port__or=0x11