Sending HTTP requests for controlling Switchbot Bot

[ix300]

Hello!

Could it be possible to send HTTP requests to the SwitchBot BLE / Network Hub (using Bitfocus Companion) to control Switchbot Bot?
Could the following example for turning a Bot on get modified for the SwitchBot BLE / Network Hub?

Request
POST https://api.switch-bot.com/v1.1/devices/210/commands
{
"command": "turnOn",
"parameter": "default",
"commandType": "command"
}
Response
{
"statusCode": 100,
"body": {},
"message": "success"
}

I have already learned from another post, that it's possible to get feedback from Switchbot using HTTP GET, which is working great with Bitfocus Companion generic HTTP module:
http://my.IP.address/api/v1/device?address=Switchbot:BLE:MAC:address

Thank you in advance!

[AdyRock]

The format for controlling device is written to:
[http://my.IP.address/api/v1/device](http://my.ip.address/api/v1/device/write
It uses a POST with a a JSON body that contains:

{
  address: MAC_Address_of_device,
  data: array_of_bytes_to_write,
}

So you would need to encode the required parameters into the array_of_bytes_to_write. For a bot this would be:
[0x57, 0x01, 0x01] to turn it on and [0x57, 0x01, 0x02] to turn it off

[JochenKr]

I would also like to control a Switchbot curtain by http.
The example above "http://my.ip.address/api/v1/device?address=Switchbot:BLE:MAC:address", works fine for me and I get a nice feedback.
Unluckily I do not exactly understand the post above concerning the write. Could you kindly give a noob example?

[AdyRock]

I can understand the confusion as the data is in the format required by the BLE device. If it helps the BLE is defined here https://github.com/OpenWonderLabs/SwitchBotAPI-BLE

So the data required for the curtain is [0x57, 0x0f, 0x45, 0x01, 0x05, mode, percent]
Where:
mode is 0x00 for fast, 0x01 for slow or 0xFF for last used speed.
percent is the percentage opening between 0 and 100 converted to hex (0x00 to 0x64)

Hope that helps.

[JochenKr]

Thanks for sharing the details.
actually I'm struggling on a more noobie point already.
how to get that JSON body into a simple url I can call. Or isn't that possible at all, as I was also not able to find a quick answer on google.
e.g. (of course not working)
http://my.IP.address/api/v1/device/write/address=Switchbot:BLE:MAC:address?data=[0x57,0x0f,0x45,0x01,0x05,0x00,0x7F]

[AdyRock]

You have to create a POST call to the address and pass the JSON data via the body.
What are you using to write to the hub?

For testing, I use a program call ARC, but I believe Postman is very similar. In ARC I would set it up like this:

As you can see, I have had to convert the HEX to decimal for the array.

As far as the JSON object is concerned, it is converted to text for the body in most library's and the header is set to JSON:

So, if you are using js http then you need something like:

const httpOptions = {
	host: HubAddress,
	path: `/api/v1/${url}`,
	method: 'POST',
	headers:
	{
		contentType: 'application/json; charset=utf-8',
		'Content-Length': bodyText.length,
		connection: 'Close',
	},
};
const req = http.request(httpOptions, (res);
req.write('{"address": "Switchbot:BLE:MAC:address","data": [87,15,69,1,5,0,127]}');
req.end();

[JochenKr]

Thanks for your very detailed guidance.
Working fine now

[ix300]

Thank you very much for your kind help! And actually the comments about the Switchbot curtain were very useful for me too!

[ix300]

Hello!

I am wondering if it would be possible to use Olimex ESP32-GATEWAY board with your software (https://github.com/OLIMEX/ESP32-GATEWAY, https://www.olimex.com/Products/IoT/ESP32/ESP32-GATEWAY/open-source-hardware)? I would prefer to connect the board with ethernet cable, as in my quite complicated wifi environment the ordinary ESP32 wifi board looses connection to the router from time to time. At the other hand, if the router sees the ESP32 board, then I can control the Switchbot Bots without problems. So the issue doesn't seem to be at the bluetooth side.