Bluetooth Input Device?

[glennww]

Does EventGhost Support bluetooth devices as an input. Can't find anything in main documentation. If it does support Bluetooth what are the steps to activate.

[Bartman]

If they use HID or COM-Ports to communicate it might work.

[kingtd]

I've been working on some bluetooth support, but it's been slow going. It's not exactly what you're looking for, but perhaps it's a start. I'm using it right now for "Proximity Detection" - basically looking for my bluetooth phone to determine if I'm in my house, and using that as a decision point for my eventghost automation.

Please note: this is still just personal hacked code. I'm nowhere near finished, and this absolutely will not let you push a button on your phone and make something happen in eventghost. If you're not ready to get your hands dirty with this half-a-plugin, it's not an option. But if you are, read on to understand how to get where I am with it.

(EDITED: Mar 5, 2008. Found some mistakes in the instructions thanks to derelict)

Steps to use it:
1. The first big limitation you'll encounter is that you need bluetooth support for python. This isn't included in the python components that come with eventghost. You'll need to go get it here: http://code.google.com/p/pybluez/downloads/list - download the Python 2.5 build 0.16. At the time of writing it was at this URL: http://pybluez.googlecode.com/files/PyB ... -py2.5.exe

2. Now that you've got that file, create a directory under your Plugins folder called BT. This will be the basis for the BT module.

3. Rename PyBluez-0.16.win32-py2.5.exe to PyBluez-0.16.win32-py2.5.gz. It will not install on a standard eventghost configuration because it can't find Python 2.5. That's no problem - we're just going to grab what we need out of the package directly.

4. Open the PyBluez-0.16.win32-py2.5.gz you got from the google code page. (You can use WinRAR) Inside you'll see a folder called PLATLIB, and under this you'll see a folder named "bluetooth". Copy this "bluetooth" folder to your BT folder under plugins. If your eventghost is default, you'll now have C:\Program Files\Eventghost\BT\bluetooth with the python files needed.

5. Unzip the file attached to this post into the BT folder. It's just a normal __init.py

6. Find the line in the __init__.py from the attachment here, and change the line that looks like this:
server_addr = "00:00:00:00:00:00"

Change it to the address of your bluetooth device.

7. We should be all done now. Exit eventghost, start it back up, add the BT plugin, and see if it can find your bluetooth device. If that's a gizmo you keep on your person, you can now detect whether you're present or not!

Hopefully this is interesting to someone out there. I've got a lot of half-finished projects and this is one of them. I believe in getting early code available to people to experiment with, even when it's not 100%.

~K

[prostetnic]

Thanks for this plug-in! I've been looking for something like this for a long time now!

I followed your instructions and unfortunately I cant get it to work. I get the following error when I try to add the plugin after restart of eventghost:

Code: Select all

---> Welcome to EventGhost <---
Autostart
Plugin: Zoom Player
Plugin: Winamp
Enable exclusive: Keyboard Emulation
Plugin: Keyboard
Main.OnInit
Error while loading plugin-file plugins\BT/.
Traceback (most recent call last) (1487):
  File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\eg\Classes\PluginInfo.py", line 119, in ImportPlugin
  File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\plugins\BT\__init__.py", line 52, in <module>
  File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\plugins\BT\bluetooth\__init__.py", line 31, in <module>
  File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\plugins\BT\bluetooth\msbt.py", line 2, in <module>
ImportError: No module named _msbt
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\eg\Classes\MainFrame\__init__.py", line 802, in OnCmdAddPlugin
    ).switch(self.document, pluginInfo)
  File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\eg\Classes\UndoHandler\NewPlugin.py", line 37, in Do
    file=pluginInfo.pluginName
  File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\eg\Classes\TreeItem.py", line 81, in Create
    self = eg.actionThread.CallWait(partial(cls, parent, node))
  File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\eg\Classes\ThreadWorker.py", line 72, in __call__
    self.returnValue = self.func()
  File "C:\Program Files\EventGhost\eg\Classes\PluginItem.py", line 58, in __init__
    self.name = eg.text.General.pluginLabel % info.label
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'label'

I use EG 0.3.6.1487
Win XP SP2

[derelict]

download the installer for windows from http://code.google.com/p/pybluez/downloads/list

and unpack (do not install) it somewhere. You need the "compiled" _msbt module from there.

Copy the extracted content (the bluetooth folder which should contain the _msbt module) to eventghost\plugins\bt\bluetooth

Hope this helps

[prostetnic]

I did it all again but still get the same error. Maybe it some python related issue? I only have EG installed and no other python related programs.
I will try again on another computer but I don't expect any success.

[derelict]

did you download the installer (.exe) NOT the sources ?
did you unpack the .exe with 7-zip or something else able to unpack .exe installers ?

[kingtd]

Thanks derelict - I was reverse engineering my own work to create the instructions and got mixed up on which package the bluetooth modules came from. I went back and updated the instructions in my original post with this in mind.

~K

[prostetnic]

Sorry for not getting back before now.
When I use the 2.6 file it works fine but it didnt work with the 2.5 not sure why though. Probably something I did wrong.

This is a great plugin!! Thanks a lot!