Control Hubs: Bringing It All Together - Smart Home Automation with Linux and Raspberry Pi - page 241

The Universal Remote Control
This is an iOS app 4 that lets you control any part of your home automation setup, whether run by Minerva or not.
It is able to do this because the remote sends only HTTP requests to a web server, and all configuration then happens
on the server. This has parallels to the various bridge solutions for communications covered in Chapter 3. While
introducing an extra link into the chain, it does mean that you only need to set up the end point for this server on the
controlling client device, consisting of:

www.minervahome.net ) u URL (it defaults to the Minerva home page at

u Port (usually 80)

u Script (urc/echo.php)

These are combined into the HTTP request:

GET http://www.minervahome.com:80/urc/echo.php?command=menu.1.region.6.index.23&code=nocode

The command argument details the specific button pressed, and will be in the format:

command=menu.[index].region.[icon_reference].index.[position_on_screen]

The code parameter is also configurable from the app, and sent as a passcode, to provide a basic level of security.
Your server-side script may choose to process (or ignore) this parameter as it sees fit.
We shall now see how the index, icon_reference, and position_on_screen references are determined.

Configuration
Because we've already said that the app is configured by the server, it makes sense to feature such a configuration file.

<homeremote>
<menu>
<button text="TV"/>
<button icon="20"/>
<button icon="19"/>
<button icon="35"/>
<button icon="36"/>
<button menu="1"/>

<button icon="0" text="Film"/>
<button icon="38"/>
<button icon="37"/>
<button icon="40"/>
<button icon="39"/>
<button menu="2"/>

... cut for brevity ...
</menu>
</homeremote>

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/universal-remote-control/id538062489?ls=1&mt=8