This is the second part of the home automation series. In the first part, I built a dashboard for displaying the hourly electricity price. Now I wanted to connect my cars to the system.

Connecting to the BMW

I did end up using the ConnectedDrive API thorugh Colin Bendell's npm package. Here is how.

1. Install BMW Remote Control
   Install the package:

   sudo apt install -y nodejs npm
   npm install -g https://github.com/colinbendell/bmw

2. Set Up Credentials
   Create ~/.bmw:

   nano ~/.bmw

   Add your ConnectedDrive credentials to ~/.bmw:

   [default]
   email=your@email.com
   password=password
   geo=row

3. Login and Access Vehicle
   Now you can log in and control the vehicle from the command line:

   bmw login
   bmw list # You will get the VIN of your vehicle
   bmw lock <VIN>
   bmw climate <VIN>

4. Example Output

   Logging in

   $ bmw login
   Success!

   Listing your vehicles

   $ bmw list
   330e 2019 (WBA5XXXXXXXXXXXXXX)

   Getting the status

   $ bmw status WBA5XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
    330e 2019 (WBA5XXXXXXXXXXXXXX):
    🏁 Odometer: 70 000 km
    🔧 iDrive7: 7/2021.85
    📍 Location: Rautatientori 1, 00100 Helsinki (60.XXX,24.XXX)
    🚪 Doors: Unlocked
    🪟 Windows: Closed
    🔋 Battery: 100% (258 km)
    🔌 Pluged In

   Locking the car

   $ bmw lock WBA5X7XXXXXXXXXXX
   330e (WBA5X7XXXXXXXXXXX): Locking... Success.

   Starting the heater / climate control

   $ bmw climate WBA5X7XXXXXXXXXXX
   Starting Climate... Success.

Building a site that can send commands to the car

For calling the npm package from the display I did a simple html site and a FastAPI backend. Here it is, the Home Display repository.

It sends the commands to the node package with subprocess like this:

import subprocess
subprocess.check_output("bmw climate WBA5X7XXXXXXXXXXX", stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)

To get it up and running clone the repository and install the dependencies:

git clone https://github.com/infr/home-display

cd home-display
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Running the site on the Raspberry Pi

Configure a systemd service to run the FastAPI backend on boot:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/uvicorn.service

Add the following content to uvicorn.service:

[Unit]
Description=Uvicorn Server
After=network.target

[Service]
User=pi
WorkingDirectory=/home/pi/home-display
ExecStart=/home/pi/home-display/venv/bin/uvicorn main:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8990

Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Set up the service to run on boot:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable uvicorn.service
sudo systemctl restart uvicorn.service
sudo systemctl status uvicorn.service

Add the site to autostart:

sudo nano /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart

Add the following content to autostart, I have an older Raspberry Pi 3 B+ so I had to use some sleep and disable flags:

@touch /home/pi/autostart_test.txt
@lxpanel --profile LXDE-pi
@pcmanfm --desktop --profile LXDE-pi
@xset s off
@xset -dpms
@xset s noblank
@/bin/sleep 30 && chromium-browser --kiosk --disable-gpu --disable-software-rasterizer --no-sandbox http://localhost:8990

Next Steps

• Maybe buy a newer Raspberry Pi since the memory is running out.
• Add Mitsubishi controlling with phevctl.
• Connect a Zigbee dongle to control the IKEA home lighting.
• Monitor temperature with Ruuvi tags.

Futher reading

• Connected Drive API documentation