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    Waking up iTouch with VNC?

    I am using jailbroken iTouch's mounted in wall in the house. I saw a post where someone said they were using VNC from homeseer to wake up the devices. I have installed the VNC client on my iTouch. Now, I just need to send commands from homeseer. Is there a VNC plug-in or someway to send commands as an event? Thanks.

    #2
    Why not use the other options that others have posted here with HSTouch? Maybe this needs to more of a offline discussion.

    Try Activator and Terminal Activator.

    Even tying it back to MLServer.

    Works great.
    HomeSeer 2, HomeSeer 3, Allonis myServer, Amazon Alexa Dots, ELK M1G, ISY 994i, HomeKit, BlueIris, and 6 "4k" Cameras using NVR, and integration between all of these systems. Home Automation since 1980.

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      #3
      Can you point me at some of these other posts? I couldn't find them when I originally posted and still cannot. Thanks.

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        #4
        HomeSeer 2, HomeSeer 3, Allonis myServer, Amazon Alexa Dots, ELK M1G, ISY 994i, HomeKit, BlueIris, and 6 "4k" Cameras using NVR, and integration between all of these systems. Home Automation since 1980.

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          #5
          Hi Krumpy, so glad you got it working also. It wasn't so easy to describe with so many little tools in the mix to make it all happen, plus the jailbreak.

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            #6
            Waking up iTouch with VNC?

            Another tip, make Activator actions for 10, 20, 30, and etc. percent screen brightness, and set up TerminalActivator commands for each one. Then you can have your HS server fire off the Putty command line script (notify_post) that in turn calls the TerminalActivator action, to set your screen brightness. If you have also installed the Dimmer tweak, you can set it all the way to 0, and effectively turn the screen off at night or when no one is around (or no motion in the room for x period of time, or whatever), and vice versa.

            One note further if you set up Dimmer, set something like 10 percent to actually be all the way to 0 in the Dimmer setup. For some reason, using this technique and 0 would always give me a not completely black screen.
            Last edited by Automated; October 22, 2014, 09:32 PM.

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              #7
              What's best about all of this is that now I have something to do with all of the old devices that I have laying around.

              Just got huge WAF by adding a old iPod touch in the bathroom where now my wife can look at her work schedule to determine appropriate clothing to wear - all of that without having to walk down to the kitchen to where we charge all of our phones.

              Love that on IOS multiple devices can go against a calendar....

              AND, I still get my home control capability...
              HomeSeer 2, HomeSeer 3, Allonis myServer, Amazon Alexa Dots, ELK M1G, ISY 994i, HomeKit, BlueIris, and 6 "4k" Cameras using NVR, and integration between all of these systems. Home Automation since 1980.

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                #8
                Ok, I installed SSH and I am able to connect to my device at the command line using Putty. Now I am stumped. I have activator installed but now what do I do? All Activator actions appeared to be tied to specific events - pushing buttons, etc. Thanks for the help.

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                  #9
                  Install TerminalActivator, then go into settings, and set up events that you want to fire off by SSH script/terminal. There you will link event names with an action. As in my tip a few posts up, you can make some for screen brightness for example, and then a script from HS can adjust the screen brightness on that device.

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                    #10
                    Thanks, I didn't pickup on the fact that TerminalActivator was an app. I was playing around with the Activator app. I will give this a spin this weekend.

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                      #11
                      I got this working but I have some questions about this. I now have the ability to turn on or off the backlight or dim the display to high or low.

                      I cannot seem to get a combination of commands that dims the screen until it is completely off - emitting no light. As noted below dimming to 0 doesn't seem to work. Has anyone else got a command that blanks out completely?

                      When I have dimmed the screen - touching the screen does not wake it back up. If someone needs to do something in the middle of the night I would like to be able to touch the screen and have it wake up. Normally this is accomplished by unlocking the screen but I am running in Guided Access mode so it doesn't lock.

                      As a workaround I am thinking about creating one button that fills the whole screen - and at night touching the screen would press this button that would then issue a 100% dim and/or backlight on command.

                      Any way around this? Thanks.

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                        #12
                        Waking up iTouch with VNC?

                        The workaround is to install the tweak called Dimmer, and set the 10 percent or so point to be a much darker point (or even backlighting totally off). I then send the command for 10% to turn off the screen. For some reason using actually 0 has some bug with the iPad together with Dimmer, and it always jumps back to a slightly higher brightness, so I just use 10% as a workaround. Also, turn Auto-Brightness OFF in the device settings, or these methods can act erratic.

                        After installing Dimmer, if you accidentally turn the screen all the way down, and can't see to turn it back up, then tap the up volume 4 times quickly. This is an emergency brightening method that Dimmer introduces and can be very handy also if you take device to a bright area and can't see to turn it up. Conversly, there is a darken command with 4 down volume taps. You can set their light points in the Dimmer settings.

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                          #13
                          Yes, I have noticed a number of weird things - but this is probably to be expected when using jailbreak tweaks.

                          I have noticed that with or without dimmer the screen brightness options appear in TerminalActivator under the More settings. What I can't figure out is what is the tweak to turn off the screen.

                          As far as I can tell I can dim down to a low number - I tried 10 and 1 and they appear to be about the same. I can turn the backlight off, but after doing this the screen is still on. I can see it when looking at the device, and it is still emitting some light. The device I am testing with is in my bedroom so it lit up the room in the middle of the night.

                          I previously was using a tweak called ScreenDimmer. It allowed me to set two things - dim after a certain period and backlight off after a certain period. When it turned the backlight off the screen shut off and the device emitted no light. The only problem is that when this tweak is installed the Backlight On/Off or Dim commands from TerminalActivator appeared not to work - so I can't wake up the device remotely - which is why I started this whole thing!

                          Can you let me know if you are able to achieve a screen off, no light emitting state from remote control? Thanks.

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                            #14
                            Waking up iTouch with VNC?

                            Do not install any other screen control apps as they surely conflict. Hopefully uninstalling the extra one you have is enough, as such things can easily corrupt a setup. As this is not Windows though, you will probably be ok to just remove the extra one.

                            To set a totally black backlight level you need to open the settings for Dimmer and slide the dark point adjustment all the way down. Then, when you set the screen brightness all the way down, the screen should be dark. I have 7 iPads all configured this way, and you cannot see them at all at night when they are off.

                            You probably should also install f.lux, as it will also give you a softer light for the evenings, but this is a personal preference.

                            Also, there are no "weird" behaviors whatsoever with any of our iPads due to the jailbreak, except the one I noted about having to use some percent other than 0 as my 0 point. I assume this is just a conflict between tweaks and ios behavior. It is a nonissue. If this all is not working, then you have some other conflicts. Each of the tablets I did from scratch, with a fresh ios install and jailbreak using the exact same documented tweak installs each time, and it all works. Unfortunately with ios 8 out now you cannot start from scratch or you lose the jailbreak. In time, hopefully they jailbreak ios 8.

                            EDIT: Actually 8 is already jailbroken, but that is all new as of now. All of my standardized builds and this SSH script controlling method through a jailbreak are on ios 7.x. In time, I am sure the same will be possible with ios 8.
                            Last edited by Automated; October 27, 2014, 01:37 PM.

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                              #15
                              Thanks for the help. I cleaned everything out and then went with dimmer only and was able to get it working. Dimming down to 0 gave me a completely off screen.

                              Now I am trying to solve the problem of someone wanting to use the screen when it is in 0% brightness. I did try assigning a 100% brightness to the Home button with Activator but alas I am using the devices in Guided Access Mode and it blocks the home key (except a triple click to exit).

                              So I am going with my more complicated option of making a whole screen button that issues a 100% and displaying this button each time I dim down to 0.

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