[if you want to support vdcd development, please consider to sponsor plan44]
vdcd is a free (opensource, GPLv3) home automation daemon for operating various types of home automation devices of various technologies under a common device model and API.
The vdcd project has started as, and is still used as, a virtual device connector (vdc) implementation for the Digital Strom home automation system. A vdc integrates third-party automation hardware as virtual devices into the Digital Strom system. Hence, the device model and API design originates from a cooperation with Digital Strom.
However, vdcd can also be operated as a fully standalone home automation controller (see --localcontroller commandline option) or as a matter bridge when used together with p44mbrd.
vdcd has ready-to-use implementation for various EnOcean devices, DALI lights (single dimmers, RGB and RGBW multi-channel color lights including DT6 and DT8 support), Philips hue LED color lights, WS281x RGB LED chains (directly on RPi, via p44-ledchain driver on MT7688), simple contacts and on-off switches connected to Linux GPIO and I2C pins, PWM outputs via i2c, DMX512 support via OLA or UART, console based debugging devices and a lot more.
When vdcd is built with p44script enabled, custom devices can be implemented as simple scripts. The p44script language has support for http and websocket APIs, MIDI, modbus, UART etc. and can make use of the p44lrgraphics subsystem to create complex LED matrix effects.
In addition to these built-in implementations, vdcd provides the plan44 vdcd external device API, a simple socket-based API that allows implementing custom devices as external scripts or programs in any language which can open socket connections (almost any, sample code for bash, C and nodeJS is included)
vdcd however is not limited to the set of features listed above - it is based on a generic C++ framework called p44vdc which is included as a submodule into this project.
p44vdc is designed for easily creating additional integrations for many other types of third-party hardware. The framework implements the entire complexity of the Digital Strom vDC API and the standard behaviour expected from Digital Strom buttons, inputs, (possibly dimming) outputs and various sensors.
For new hardware, only the actual access to the device's hardware needs to be implemented.
vdcd/p44vdc are based on a set of generic C++ utility classes called p44utils, which provides basic mechanisms for mainloop-based, nonblocking I/O driven automation daemons, as well as a script language, p44script. p44utils is also included as a submodule into this project.
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vdcd is licensed under the GPLv3 License (see COPYING).
If that's a problem for your particular application, I am open to provide a commercial license, please contact me at luz@plan44.ch.
P44-LC-X (standalone controller / matter bridge) and P44-DSB-X (for use with Digital Strom) which contains a complete OpenWrt ready to run first experiments with virtual devices (for example driving GPIO pins of the Raspberry). You can download it from plan44.ch/automation/p44-lc-x.php and plan44.ch/automation/p44-dsb-x.php, resp., copy it to a SD Card, and use it with a RPi B, B+, 2,3 and 4.Clone the github repository
git clone https://github.com/plan44/vdcd
Choose suitable branch:
consult the /docs folder: For building the vdcd, see "How to build vdcd on Linux.md" and "How to build and run vdcd on Mac OS X.md".
Clone the github repository
git clone https://github.com/plan44/vdcd
Set the vdcd branch you want to use (see above)
(by changing the ENV BRANCH line in the Dockerfile; as-is, this is set to master)
Build container image
cd vdcd
docker build -t myimagename .
Run vdcd as container, for the autodiscovery to work you have to mount your dbus and avahi-daemon socket into the container
docker run --network="host" -v /var/run/dbus:/var/run/dbus -v /var/run/avahi-daemon/socket:/var/run/avahi-daemon/socket myimagename vdcd [options]
vdcd package.(c) 2013-2024 by Lukas Zeller / plan44.ch