How to use OpenData, Firefox OS and a Raspberry Pi to build a better Washing Machine

HOW TO USE OPENDATA, FIREFOX
OS AND A RASPBERRY PI TO BUILD A
BETTER WASHING MACHINE
André Fiedler
mozillians.org/en-US/u/SunboX
2015-04-06

Why a better washing machine?
First, I wanted to learn a bit more about the current state of OpenData in Germany.
Second, I wanted to check out Firefox OS (FxOS) on Raspberry Pi (RPi) and running a
web server in pure JavaScript.
And last, current washing machines suck and are very inefficient.
2/27#FirefoxOSAndIoT

How current washing works.
Washing machines have to clean your laundry.
If it’s dirty after washing no one would ever buy this machine again.
To achieve this, washing machines
…and they don’t inform you when they did finish.
consume too much water
consume too much energy / time
consume too much detergent
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Why do they use too much of all?
(most) machines don’t know the weight of your laundry
they don’t know the water hardness
they don’t know the type of detergent to use
detergent manufacturer trick you to overdose their detergents
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How to fix this?
using more data — OpenData
smarter washing machines — Internet of Things (IoT)
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Internet of Things?
Smarter washing machines that automatically dose the detergent and water by using
OpenData and at the end using less energy.
Smarter washing machines that provide data, like used energy, used water, washing
time and all kind of stats so someone else could build up on this.

Using more data
Measuring the weight is easy, but how about the water hardness and used
detergent?

OpenData to the rescue
Since February 2014 there’s a initiative called „Code for Germany“
http://codefor.de
Volunteers work together with german city councils to digitalize open data and make
it easy accessible to everyone. A good example is the Open Data Lab Heilbronn. They
put all their data on Github here https://github.com/opendata-heilbronn

I used their water data for my washing machine sample,
by providing it through an API:
https://github.com/SunboX/fxos-washing-machine_water-api
This simple example shows how much OpenData can be used to make things better.
Even if the people who opened this data to the public didn’t really know what it can
be used for. All cities have collected data about your water quality (and much more)
— very few make it open. So „Code for Germany“ is really necessary to make all the
public data accessible to everyone.

Ok, now we know the hardness of our water. But how
about the detergents?
Same thing here, make it public available. Every detergent manufacturer prints it on
the packaging. But by now there’s no database containing this data.
Who want’s to build a website for collecting it? I’ve already a proposal how the API
could look like: https://gist.github.com/SunboX/d688d76ff6ca7b1a2f24

So now we have enough data to work with,
the really cool thing …

FIREFOX OS RUNNING ON A
RASPBERRY PI

Firefox OS running on a Raspberry Pi
Firefox OS is great for rapid prototyping. It’s as easy as writing a web page.
There’s a wiki page about the current state of FxOS on RPi and some info about how
to flash it onto your RPi: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Fxos_on_RaspberryPi
I’ve used a special build by Jan Jongboom who is currently working on improved
GPIO support. You can download this build from here:
https://gist.github.com/janjongboom/94d575526a689687a6b8

How does it work?
I’m running a stripped down version of FxOS called JanOS: http://janos.io/
It’s basically your RPi booting into a HTML page rendered by Gecko (FxOS).

The washing machine interface is all build using web technology. It’s controlled by
an app running on a FxOS phone. The washing machine is providing a REST API
allowing the phone to talk to it. This REST API is running on a web server
implemented in pure JavaScript.

Lets go into detail of this …

The washing machine interface
You can find the source code for the interface at:
https://github.com/SunboX/fxos-washing-machine_interface

After the RPi did boot up it tries to automatically connect to wifi (which is pre-
defined by now) and than it fires up the web server. The server implementation is
based on https://hacks.mozilla.org/2015/02/embedding-an-http-web-server-in-
firefox-os/
wm.WashingApi=(function(){
letwifiManager=navigator.mozWifiManager,
lastIp,
httpServer,
letinit=function(){
if('onconnectioninfoupdate'inwifiManager){
wifiManager.onconnectioninfoupdate=e=>{
if(e.ipAddress&&lastIp!==e.ipAddress){
httpServer=newHTTPServer(wm.Config.ApiServerPort);

The server provides a simple JSON REST API which is used to tell the washing
machine about water hardness and detergents, to start/stop the machine and for
getting stats.
httpServer.addEventListener('request',e=>{
e.response.headers['Content-Type']='application/json;charset=utf-8';
switch(e.request.path){
case'/start':
body=JSON.stringify({
success:wm.WashingProgram.start()
});
break;
case'/data/water-hardness':
letprogramUuid=e.request.params.programUuid;
letwaterHardness=e.request.params.waterHardness;
body=JSON.stringify({
success:wm.WashingProgram.setWaterHardness(programUuid,waterHardness)
});
break;

If all data is collected and the start command was requested, the washing program
will be calculated and it starts a timer. Also a LED connected to the GPIO pins of the
RPi begins to blink.
If this were a real machine, it should first automatically dose the detergents based
on the given data and after that start to run through the washing program.

How to blink the LED?
… because blinking LED's is cool. ;o)
navigator.gpio.setPinMode(3,'output').then(pin3=>{
pin3.writeDigital(0);
letblinkValue=0;
letblink=()=>{
blinkValue^=1;
pin3.writeDigital(blinkValue);
setTimeout(blink,500);
}
wm.WashingProgram.addEventListener('start',e=>{
blink();
});

Next the app …

The washing machine app
You can find the source code for the app at:
https://github.com/SunboX/fxos-washing-machine_app
The app will provide some open data like water hardness (after getting the current
location) and washing powder dosis to the washing machine.

So, what's next?

What's next?
There are three points which can be worked on next:
Finishing the software — Interface & App
The hardware — using real Sensors, maybe a real Washing Machine?
OpenData webpage & API for collecton washing detergent dosis
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Want to help?
I'm looking for someone interested to help, or taking over the whole project if it fits
to him better.
I'm interested in a lot of things and this small „project“ was just meant to get me
updated about current state of OpenData, IoT and FxOS on RPi.
So if you want to get this further, plz help me or take it. :o) Otherwise I will (maybe)
work on it from time to time.

<Thank You!>
contact: andre.fiedler@me.com
twitter @sonnenkiste
github github.com/SunboX
linkedin linkedin.com/profile/view?id=226588234
g+ plus.google.com/116509237159086833815

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