This is a development branch of photoframe targeting the next version of the software.
Significant changes for photoframe v2 include:
- Designed to be used with a manual installation on top of a Raspberry Pi OS Lite
Busterrelease - Use of Python 3.
- Support for HEIC photos. This drove the need for the latest OS release.
- ddcutil driven brightness and temperature changes. This feature works with monitors that can be adjusted using ddc over HDMI, including brightness and temperature. Existing branches do not adjust the screen brightness.
- Support for TCS3472* color and lumen module e.g. https://www.ebay.com/itm/133600154256
- Improved color and temperature calculations both for accuracy and sensitivity
- Managed at port 80 - no need to add :7777 to the URL.
A Raspberry Pi (Zero, 1 or 3) software which automatically pulls photos from Google Photos and displays them on the attached screen, just like a photoframe. No need to upload photos to 3rd party service or fiddle with local storage or SD card.
Unlike most other frames out there, this one will automatically refresh and grab content from your photo collection, making it super simple to have a nice photo frame. Also uses keywords so you can make sure the relevant photos are shown and not the reciepts for your expense report.
It also has more unique features like ambient color temperature adjustments which allows the images to meld better with the room where it's running.
- Simple web interface for configuration
- Google Photo search integration for more interesting images
- Blanking of screen (ie, off hours)
- Simple OAuth2.0 even though behind firewall (see further down)
- Shows error messages on screen
- Supports ambient room color temperature adjustments
- Uses ambient sensor to improve powersave
- Power control via GPIO (turn RPi on/off)
- Non-HDMI displays (SPI, DPI, etc)
- Any Raspberry Pi
- Display of some sort (HDMI or SPI/DPI displays)
- Another device with a web browser to manage the photoframe
- Internet photos from Google or from URLs require Internet access for the Raspberry Pi
- Familiarity wih Raspberry Pi and Linux command line procedures
This branch is not compatible with existing SD card images available at mrworf/photoframe. Once a new SD card image is create for V2, then much of this goes into MANUAL.md
Start by installing Raspberry Pi OS Lite from a Buster release. Jan 2021 or later.
Make a shell available either by attaching a keyboard, or by enabling ssh
Note: to enable ssh add two files to the SSD /boot drive:
ssh
(no contents)
wpa_supplicant.conf
# Use this file instead of wifi-config.txt
# Should set country properly
country=us
update_config=1
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
network={
scan_ssid=1
ssid="YourSSID"
psk="YourWiFiPassword"
}
If a keyboard is attached, you can use raspi-config to set up WiFi.
use sudo raspi-config to set locale, time zone, WiFi and Country (if not done with the files above), and to enable I2C kernel module
Bring the distro up to date:
sudo apt update && apt upgrade
From this point forward, it's recommended to sudo bash and then cd so that the commands are performed as root the /root directory
Install additional dependencies:
apt install git python3-pip python3-requests python3-requests-oauthlib python3-flask
apt install imagemagick python3-smbus bc ddcutil
pip3 install requests requests-oauthlib flask flask-httpauth smbus
pip3 install netifaces
Next, let's tweak the boot so we don't get a bunch of output
Edit the /boot/cmdline.txt and add replace the term console=tty1 with all of the following:
console=tty3 loglevel=3 consoleblank=0 vt.global_cursor_default=0 logo.nologo
You also need to edit the /boot/config.txt in two places.
Add the following before the first # uncomment section
disable_splash=1
framebuffer_ignore_alpha=1
And add the following to the dtparam section
dtparam=i2c2_iknowwhatimdoing
We also want to disable the first console (since that's going to be our frame). This is done by issuing
systemctl disable getty@tty1.service
And also do
systemctl mask plymouth-start.service
or you might still see the boot messages.
Time to install photoframe, which means downloading the repo, install the service and reboot
cd /root
git clone --branch python3 --single-branch https://github.com/dadr/photoframe.git
cd photoframe
cp frame.service /etc/systemd/system/
systemctl enable /etc/systemd/system/frame.service
reboot now
To get automatic updates, create a file /etc/cron.d/photoframe with the following contents:
# Check once a week for updates to the photoframe software.
15 3 * * * root /root/photoframe/update.sh
Finally, if you want the web interface to be login-password protected, then create the file /boot/http-auth.json with the following edited to suite:
{"user":"photoframe","password":"password"}
photoframe is managed using a browser on the same WiFi subnet. The URL is shown when no configuration is present, and shown for a few seconds on bootup for a photoframe that has a working configuration.
The default username/password for the web page is photoframe and password. This can be changed by editing the file called http-auth.json on the boot drive
This branch of photoframe is intended to work with color temperature modules. Yes, photoframe can actually adjust the temperature of the image to suit the light in the room. For this to work, you need to install a TCS3472*, see https://www.adafruit.com/product/1334 and https://www.ebay.com/itm/133600154256. These should be hooked up to the I2C bus like this:
3.3V -> Pin 1 (3.3V)
SDA -> Pin 3 (GPIO 0)
SCL -> Pin 5 (GPIO 1)
GND -> Pin 9 (GND)
LED -> Pin 9 (GND)
Instructions above include enabling the I2C bus by using raspi-config and going to submenu 5 (interfaces) and select I2C and enable it.
Once all this is done, you have one more thing left to do before rebooting, you need to download the imagemagick script that will adjust the image,
please visit http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/colortemp/index.php and download and store it as colortemp.sh inside /root/photoframe_config.
Don't forget to make it executable by chmod +x /root/photoframe_config/colortemp.sh or it will still not work.
You're done! Reboot your RPi3 (So I2C gets enabled) and from now on, all images will get adjusted to match the ambient color temperature.
If photoframe is unable to use the sensor, it "usually" gives you helpful hints. Check the /var/log/syslog file for frame.py entries.
Note
The sensor is automatically detected as long as it is a TCS3472* device and it's connected correctly to the I2C bus of the raspberry pi. Once detected you'll get a new read-out in the web interface which details both white balance (kelvin) and light (lux).
If you don't get this read-out, look at your logfile. There will be hints like sensor not found or sensor not being the expected one, etc.
Yes, using the same sensor, you can set a threshold and duration, if the ambient light is below said threshold for the duration, it will trigger powersave on the display. If the ambient brightness is above the threshold for same duration, it will wake up the display.
However, if you're combining this with the scheduler, the scheduler takes priority and will keep the display in powersave during the scheduled hours, regardless of what the sensor says. The sensor is only used to extend the periods, it cannot power on the display during the off hours.
Photoframe listens to GPIO 26 (default, can be changed) to power off (and also power on). If you connect a switch between pin 37 (GPIO 26) and pin 39 (GND), you'll be able to do a graceful shutdown as well as power on.
Since Google doesn't approve of OAuth with dynamic redirect addresses, this project makes use of a lightweight service which allows registration of desired redirect (as long as it's a LAN address) and then when Google redirects, this service will make another redirect back to your raspberry. The registered addresses are only kept for 10min and is only stored in RAM, so nothing is kept.
User RPi3 Google Sensenet
|--[Start linking]--->| | |
| | | |
| |-------[Register LAN address]------------->|
| | | |
| |<---------[Unique ID to use]---------------|
| | | |
|<--[OAuth2.0 begin]--| | |
| | | |
|<-[OAuth2.0 exchange, state holds unique ID]-->| |
| | | |
|<---[Redirect to photoframe.sensenet.nu]-------| |
| | | |
|----[Load photoframe.sensenet.nu with unique ID]---------------->|
| | | |
|<---[New redirect to registered LAN address from earlier]--------|
| | | |
|--[Load local web]-->| | |
| | | |
It's somewhat simplified, but shows the extra step taken to register your LAN address so redirection works.
If you want to see how it works and/or run your own, you'll find the code for this service under extras and requires
php with memcached. Ideally you use a SSL endpoint as well.
You could run the same service yourself (see extras/). It requires a DNS name which doesn't change and HTTPS support. You'll also need to change the relevant parts of this guide and the frame.py file so all references are correct. You might also be able to use server tokens instead, but that would require you to do more invasive changes. I don't have any support for this at this time.
Check out the photoframe branch on https://github.com/mrworf/pi-gen ... It contains all the changes and patches needed to create the image. Starting with v1.1.1 it will match tags.
Place a file called ssh on the boot drive and the ssh daemon will be enabled. Login is pi/raspberry (just like raspbian). Beware that if you start changing files inside /root/photoframe/ the automatic update will no longer function as expected.
By default, it logs very little and what it logs can be found under /var/log/syslog, just look for frame entries
If you're having issues and you want more details, do the following as root:
systemctl stop frame
/root/photoframe/frame.py --debug
This will cause photoframe to run in the foreground and provide tons of debug information
Add the following to your /etc/sudoers
<your username> ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /bin/mount
But please note that this will enable your user to use mount via sudo WITHOUT PASSWORD PROMPTING
Start frame.py with --emulate to run without a RPi
You might be missing exFAT support. If you used this on RPi, it comes preinstalled, but if you're running this manually, please install the following (assumes ubuntu distro)
sudo apt install exfat-fuse exfat-utils
After this, you should be able to use exFAT
By default, most photo providers will fetch a list of available photos for a given keyword. This list isn't refreshed until one of the following events happen:
- No more photos are available from ANY photo provider in your frame
- User presses "Forget Memory" in web UI
- The age of the downloaded index exceeds the hours specified by "Refresh keywords" option
To disable the last item on that list, set the "Refresh keywords" to 0 (zero). This effectively disables this and now the frame will only refresh if no more photos are available or if user presses the forget memory item.
Given you haven't set any options to limit based on orientation or a refresh which is too short to show them all, it should walk through the provided list from your provider.
however
Not all content is supported. To help troubleshoot why some content is missing, you can press "Details" for any keyword (given that the provider supports it) and the frame will let you know what content it has found. It should also give you an indication if there's a lot of content which is currently unsupported.