When I was here in Spain (2018) in April working on the house controller, the mobile control package I keep going back to (Blynk) was improving but the RGB ZeRGBa (RGB)control was acting up when you put two or more on a single mobile screen. I put that to one side, disappointed (and yes I did talk to the designers).
Meanwhile a new control had been added, a multi-state switch. This is very important as you may for example have lighting control that needs manual off, auto (timer) or manual on. Back in April this was new and had issues.
I’m pleased to say that in both cases the problems have been solved. Much as I love Node-Red for the base of home control, it has to be said that the RGB controller in Node-Rd-Dashboard is AWFUL and last I heard there was little chance of a fix.
So, it looks like Blynk gets the job with Node-Red as the base. I’m hoping the local server has also improved (there was an issue with Java versions also around April. I’ll check that next). Meanwhile I can definitely recommend Blynk to anyone working on a generic home control system. I’m using it with Node-Red.
my script for a local install of a blynk server has worked for months and will install version 8 of the jar, which should have no issues… they were on the java 10 version…
https://gist.github.com/fragolinux/a5e7d6153afab4c52d91d41ff9860b8c
to install:
sudo wget –no-check-certificate -O /etc/init.d/blynk https://gist.githubusercontent.com/fragolinux/a5e7d6153afab4c52d91d41ff9860b8c/raw
sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/blynk && sudo update-rc.d blynk defaults
sudo /etc/init.d/blynk install
just published an updated script version that adds the UPDATE switch…
this way you can rerun it to have latest java v8 jar version…
if you never run the script, do this to get the latest version with the new switch
sudo wget –no-check-certificate -O /etc/init.d/blynk https://gist.githubusercontent.com/fragolinux/a5e7d6153afab4c52d91d41ff9860b8c/raw
sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/blynk && sudo update-rc.d blynk defaults
sudo /etc/init.d/blynk install
if instead you already run the script, do this:
sudo wget –no-check-certificate -O /etc/init.d/blynk https://gist.githubusercontent.com/fragolinux/a5e7d6153afab4c52d91d41ff9860b8c/raw
sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/blynk && sudo update-rc.d blynk defaults
sudo /etc/init.d/blynk update
from now on, if you want to update, just run:
sudo /etc/init.d/blynk update
this will rename previous version to .OLD in /opt/Blynk folder and download a new version: just tested on 2 of my boards without issues
the only difference in the 1st 2 block of 3 commands each is last line, with INSTALL switch in the former (which creates the config files, too) and UPDATE in the latter (which just updates the jar file to latest one, without touching previous config files)… you need to rerun those 3 lines only if you have an old version of my script, to download a newer one with the UPDATE switch added… from now on, you could just run this, to download latest jar file and restart services:
sudo /etc/init.d/blynk update
blynk is one of the best platform for DIYers , i have it running local server on RPI Zero W , and the app controlling my entire home lighting , AC , Doors and some Temp and Humd. sensors in different rooms and work perfectly.