{HowTo} turn on/off your monitor (Time based, PIR/Button, App)

MadScientist · Oct 3, 2018, 9:40 AM

I wouldn’t know how to program it but you could try playing around with a photo resistor like this or this. But I think that will only work if you have constant light conditions. Maybe an IR light barrier with a reflector on the other side would work better.

No idea if what you want is possible but that would be an awesome project.

cruunnerr · Oct 3, 2018, 7:37 PM

Or use an ultrasonic sensor. You could let it measure the distance and if its under a specific value for a specific time it could turn on the monitor

Rec3ptor · Nov 16, 2018, 3:51 PM

Would you mind sharing how you wired your LED to pin16 in step 2.2 Using PIR-Script for LED_PIN = 16?
are you using resistors or mosfets etc? im a noob and dont want to break anything.

cruunnerr · Nov 19, 2018, 4:26 AM

In my Case I am using a RGB 5050 Stripe. I am using three pins with mosfets and for the software part PIGPIOD.

Just like that: https://dordnung.de/raspberrypi-ledstrip/

Here are my scripts:

monitor on:

vcgencmd display_power 1

pigs p 17 1
pigs p 22 1
pigs p 24 1

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 2
pigs p 22 2
pigs p 24 2

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 3
pigs p 22 3
pigs p 24 3

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 4
pigs p 22 4
pigs p 24 4

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 5
pigs p 22 5
pigs p 24 5

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 6
pigs p 22 6
pigs p 24 5

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 7
pigs p 22 7
pigs p 24 6

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 8
pigs p 22 8
pigs p 24 7

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 9
pigs p 22 9
pigs p 24 8

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 10
pigs p 22 10
pigs p 24 9

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 11
pigs p 22 11
pigs p 24 10

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 12
pigs p 22 12
pigs p 24 11

Monitor off:

pigs p 17 12
pigs p 22 12
pigs p 24 11

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 11
pigs p 22 11
pigs p 24 10

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 10
pigs p 22 10
pigs p 24 9

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 9
pigs p 22 9
pigs p 24 8

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 8
pigs p 22 8
pigs p 24 7

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 7
pigs p 22 7
pigs p 24 6

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 6
pigs p 22 6
pigs p 24 5

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 5
pigs p 22 5
pigs p 24 5

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 4
pigs p 22 4
pigs p 24 4

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 4
pigs p 22 4
pigs p 24 4

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 3
pigs p 22 3
pigs p 24 3

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 2
pigs p 22 2
pigs p 24 2

vcgencmd display_power 0

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 1
pigs p 22 1
pigs p 24 1

sleep 0.06s

pigs p 17 0
pigs p 22 0
pigs p 24 0

richland007 · Nov 19, 2018, 6:43 AM

@cruunnerr Hey there great tutorial,
I want to use the cronjob to turn on and off the mirror at certain times of the day.
My monitor is a DVI monitor so it is connected digitally with a cable that on one end is HDMI that sticks in the Rpi and the other end is a DVI connector that goes in the monitor.
When i try the commands you have mentioned;

sudo tvservice -o to turn off
sudo tvservice -p to turn on

vcgencmd display_power 0 to turn off
vcgencmd display_power 1 to turn on

Both commands for OFF turn off the display however none of the ON commands work right …it does not come on fully!!!
Meaning that it is On just no picture… it says DVI = Active VGA - No Signal and the Rpi is working there is just no picture …and no there is no Power Saving feature, i don’t think, because the back light of the LCD i can see is on after the ON command.
I send the On and Off commands through Putty ssh but i am also logged in with VNC and the moment you click reboot from VNC (there is nothing on the screen just dark with On LCD back light) the picture comes immediately back on and reboot carries on as usual and the picture is back on!!
So i think the Rpi HDMI signal is at fault and not the monitor feature but i may be wrong …what do you think may man??

Thank you in advance
Denis

p.s I read all 11 pages of this thread form the begging to the end with the hopes of finding a solution before bothering you LOL :)

teitlebot · Nov 19, 2018, 4:24 PM

@cruunnerr @Maros
Thanks to you guys I finally got it working although for me I needed to use crontab -e because if I edit the ect/ file it doenst work. Also I had to make the two changes @Maros had to make. I changed the pkill to kill and removed the /usr directory. I wish I understood more of what I was doing but it works now. Next question
I would also like to remove a specific module that I have called mmm facial recognition during certain hours. Would this be possible?

richland007 · Nov 25, 2018, 3:37 AM

@cruunnerr Hey there buddy i know everyone is busy with the holidays coming up and i don’t want to bother you much but in regard to my predicament 2 posts above do you think if i add a cron job to restart the pi at the time i want the screen to be on will be a solution?? And how would i go about adding a restart as a cron job everyday in the morning at 7:30 am for example?/
Thank you
D

cruunnerr · Nov 25, 2018, 7:15 AM

Hey dude,

sorry for not answering, but i am only rarely here :(

First i would try to edit the config file:

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

try to uncomment “hdmi_force_hotplug=1” and try to uncomment “config_hdmi_boost=4”

maybe play around with some other settings.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/config-txt/video.md

Rebooting the pi once a day is not the best solution :/
But however, if necessary:
http://www.simsalabim-solutions.net/vademecum/raspberry_pi/setting_up_reboot_cron_job_on_pi

Rec3ptor · Nov 26, 2018, 12:19 AM

@cruunnerr Thanks for the reply, apreciate it. I now have a 5050 LED strip wired up with the mosfets.
working with the pir script (removed the module as you advised others)

what method did you use to run pigpiod deamon on startup. i added this in my crontab, guess that will do unless theres a better way.
@reboot /usr/local/bin/pigpiod

cruunnerr · Nov 26, 2018, 5:38 AM

@Rec3ptor

If u followed the guide i posted, your PIGPIOD installation path should be “/usr/local/bin/pigpiod”

For autostart when booting u must edit the rc.local. Mine is like this:

pi@MagicMirror:~ $ cat /etc/rc.local
#!/bin/sh -e
#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other
# value on error.
#
# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution
# bits.
#
# By default this script does nothing.

# Print the IP address
_IP=$(hostname -I) || true
if [ "$_IP" ]; then
  printf "My IP address is %s\n" "$_IP"
fi

iwconfig wlan0 power off &

sleep 5 &

/usr/local/bin/pigpiod

sleep 10 &

/usr/bin/python /home/pi/pir.py &

exit 0

So enter this via ssh:

sudo nano /etc/rc.local

and just put this into the file:

/usr/local/bin/pigpiod