Command-line Tools and C library for blink(1) USB RGB LED

This is an official collection of C/C++ commandline tools for controlling the blink1 USB RGB LED.

This code lives at https://github.com/todbot/blink1-tool.

For pre-built binaries, see the Releases page.

The current tools are:

blink1-tool -- command-line tool for controlling blink(1)
blink1control-tool -- blink1-tool for use with Blink1Control (uses HTTP REST API)
blink1-tiny-server -- (README) Simple HTTP API server to control blink1, uses blink1-lib
blink1-lib -- C library for controlling blink(1)
blink1-mini-tool -- commandline tool using libusb-0.1 and minimal deps
blink1raw -- small example commandline tool using Linux hidraw

Type make help for a full list.

Also see in this directory:

scripts -- examples shell scripts using blink1-tool

Supported platforms

Supported platforms for blink1-tool and blink1-lib:

Mac OS X 10.6.8, 10.7+
Windows XP+ (built with MinGW & MSYS)
Linux (most all, primary development on Ubuntu)
FreeBSD 8.2+
Raspberry Pi (Raspian)
BeagleBone (Ubuntu)
OpenWRT / DD-WRT
... just about anything else with Gnu Make & a C-compiler

In general, the blink1-tool builds as a static binary where possible, eliminating the need for shared library dependencies on the target. However, static builds can be problematic for some systems with different libusb implementations, so doing make EXEFLAGS= will generally build a non-static version.

OS-specific Notes

Linux (including Raspberry Pi)

To use blink(1) as a non-root user, udev rules must be installed. On Debian-like systems (Ubuntu, Raspian), these udev rules are installed with:

sudo cp 51-blink1.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/51-blink1.rules
sudo udevadm control --reload
sudo udevadm trigger

Building from source

In general you can do:

git clone https://github.com/todbot/blink1-tool
cd blink1-tool
make

On Linux you will need to install some requirements beforehand.

If your OS is not detected automatically, you can force it with something like:

OS=linux make

To see the supported platforms, please consult the Makefile

Build variants

There are two primary USB libraries that blink1-tool can be built for:

USBLIB_TYPE=HIDAPI -- Uses the feature-rich cross-platform hidapi library (default)
USBLIB_TYPE=HIDDATA -- Uses a simple, cross-platform hiddata library (included)

For Linux, there are to HIDAPI_TYPEs you can choose from:

HIDAPI_TYPE=HIDRAW -- Uses standard hidraw kernel API for HID devices (default)
HIDAPI_TYPE=LIBUSB -- Uses lower-level libusb commands (good for older Linuxes)

To compile for a particular USBLIB_TYPE or HIDAPI_TYPE, specify them when buildling:

HIDAPI_TYPE=LIBUSB make

OS-specific prerequisites for compiling

If you have the ability to compile programs on your system, you may already have everything you need to compile blink1-tool.

Linux (Debian-flavored, including Raspberry Pi)

In a terminal, install pre-reqs and build:
sudo apt-get install libudev-dev pkg-config build-essential
sudo apt-get install libusb-1.0-0-dev (optional, only for libusb variant)
cd blink1-tool
make
HIDAPI_TYPE=libusb make (if you instead you want libusb version)

FreeBSD

Install pre-reqs and build:
sudo pkg install gmake gcc git libiconv
cd blink1-tool
gmake
sudo ./blink1-tool --red --flash 3
If you'd like devd support, see the devd-51-blink1.conf file.

MacOS

Xcode
In Terminal, setup Xcode and build:
xcode-select --install
cd blink1-tool
make

Windows

Install Visual Studio 2017 or 2019
Install MSYS2: https://www.msys2.org/
In MSYS2 bash shell:
pacman -S base-devel make git zip unzip mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc
export PATH=${PATH}:/c/msys64/mingw64/bin
export PATH=${PATH}:"/c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0/VC/bin"
export PATH=${PATH}:'/c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio/2019/BuildTools/VC/Tools/MSVC/14.29.30133/bin/Hostx64/x64'"
make

Other OSes

See the blink1-tool/Makefile for details

Using blink1-lib in your C/C++ project

See Makefile for your platform

Docker and blink(1)

[this may be out of date after the repo move]

To build the image from the Dockerfile

docker build -t robtec/blink1 .

Running the container

docker run -d --privileged robtec/blink1

Note the --privileged tag, docker needs this to access the hosts USB controllers

Docker resources

todbot / blink1-tool

readme