Phillips Hue Bridge and Graphite Integration

Input and output integration overview

This plugin gathers status from Hue Bridge devices using the CLIP API interface.

The Graphite plugin enables users to send metrics collected by Telegraf into Graphite via TCP. This integration allows for efficient storage and visualization of time-series data using Graphite’s powerful capabilities.

Integration details

Phillips Hue Bridge

The Hue Bridge plugin allows users to gather real-time status from Philips Hue Bridge devices utilizing the CLIP API interface. By communicating with Hue Bridges, this plugin is capable of retrieving various metrics related to home lighting and environmental conditions. It offers multiple schemes for accessing the bridges, such as local LAN, cloud, and mDNS, ensuring flexibility in deployment scenarios. The plugin can handle diverse configurations such as room assignments for devices, which optimizes the evaluation of statuses, especially in environments with many devices. Furthermore, it provides various monitoring metrics applicable to lights, temperature sensors, motion sensors, and device power status, thereby enabling comprehensive insights into a smart home setup. The configuration options allow users to tailor their connections to optimize performance and security, including optional TLS configurations for secure communication.

Graphite

This plugin writes metrics to Graphite via raw TCP, allowing for seamless integration of Telegraf collected metrics into the Graphite ecosystem. With this plugin, users can configure multiple TCP endpoints for load balancing, ensuring high availability and reliability in metric transmission. The ability to customize metric naming with prefixes and utilize various templating options enhances flexibility in how data is represented within Graphite. Additionally, support for Graphite tags and options for strict sanitization of metric names allow for robust data management, catering to the varying needs of users. This capability is essential for organizations looking to leverage Graphite’s powerful metrics storage and visualization while maintaining control over data representation.

Configuration

Phillips Hue Bridge

[[inputs.huebridge]]
  ## URL of bridges to query in the form ://:@
/
  ## See documentation for available schemes.
  bridges = [ "address://:@/" ]

  ## Manual device to room assignments to apply during status evaluation.
  ## E.g. for motion sensors which are reported without a room assignment.
  # room_assignments = { "Motion sensor 1" = "Living room", "Motion sensor 2" = "Corridor" }

  ## Timeout for gathering information
  # timeout = "10s"

  ## Optional TLS Config
  # tls_ca = "/etc/telegraf/ca.pem"
  # tls_cert = "/etc/telegraf/cert.pem"
  # tls_key = "/etc/telegraf/key.pem"
  # tls_key_pwd = "secret"
  ## Use TLS but skip chain & host verification
  # insecure_skip_verify = false
</code></pre>

Graphite

# Configuration for Graphite server to send metrics to
[[outputs.graphite]]
  ## TCP endpoint for your graphite instance.
  ## If multiple endpoints are configured, the output will be load balanced.
  ## Only one of the endpoints will be written to with each iteration.
  servers = ["localhost:2003"]

  ## Local address to bind when connecting to the server
  ## If empty or not set, the local address is automatically chosen.
  # local_address = ""

  ## Prefix metrics name
  prefix = ""

  ## Graphite output template
  ## see https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/blob/master/docs/DATA_FORMATS_OUTPUT.md
  template = "host.tags.measurement.field"

  ## Strict sanitization regex
  ## This is the default sanitization regex that is used on data passed to the
  ## graphite serializer. Users can add additional characters here if required.
  ## Be aware that the characters, '/' '@' '*' are always replaced with '_',
  ## '..' is replaced with '.', and '\' is removed even if added to the
  ## following regex.
  # graphite_strict_sanitize_regex = '[^a-zA-Z0-9-:._=\p{L}]'

  ## Enable Graphite tags support
  # graphite_tag_support = false

  ## Applied sanitization mode when graphite tag support is enabled.
  ## * strict - uses the regex specified above
  ## * compatible - allows for greater number of characters
  # graphite_tag_sanitize_mode = "strict"

  ## Character for separating metric name and field for Graphite tags
  # graphite_separator = "."

  ## Graphite templates patterns
  ## 1. Template for cpu
  ## 2. Template for disk*
  ## 3. Default template
  # templates = [
  #  "cpu tags.measurement.host.field",
  #  "disk* measurement.field",
  #  "host.measurement.tags.field"
  #]

  ## timeout in seconds for the write connection to graphite
  # timeout = "2s"

  ## Optional TLS Config
  # tls_ca = "/etc/telegraf/ca.pem"
  # tls_cert = "/etc/telegraf/cert.pem"
  # tls_key = "/etc/telegraf/key.pem"
  ## Use TLS but skip chain & host verification
  # insecure_skip_verify = false

Input and output integration examples

Phillips Hue Bridge

1. Automated Lighting Control Based on Room Occupancy: Utilize the Hue Bridge plugin to monitor motion sensors within various rooms of a home. When motion is detected, the system can automatically trigger the lights to turn on, providing convenience and energy efficiency. This integration could significantly enhance user experience and preferences, adapting the lighting to occupancy levels without manual intervention.

2. Environmental Monitoring in Smart Homes: Implement the Hue Bridge plugin to track temperature and light levels within the house. By continuously monitoring these metrics, users can create a comfortable indoor climate, adjusting heating and cooling systems based on temperature trends or activating lights based on light levels detected. This data-driven approach leads to smart home automation that responds to actual environmental conditions.

3. Integration with Home Automation Systems: Leverage this plugin to integrate Philips Hue Bridge statistics into broader home automation frameworks. For example, collecting light and temperature data can feed into a centralized dashboard that provides homeowners with insights about their energy usage patterns. Environments can be programmed to respond proactively to user habits, promoting efficiency and energy conservation.

4. Battery Monitoring for Smart Devices: Use the Hue Bridge plugin to monitor battery levels across various connected smart devices. By being alerted about low battery states, homeowners can take timely actions to replace or recharge devices, preventing outages and ensuring smooth operation of their smart home systems.

Graphite

1. Dynamic Metric Visualization: The Graphite plugin can be utilized to feed real-time metrics from various sources, such as application performance data or server health metrics, into Graphite. This dynamic integration allows teams to create interactive dashboards that visualize key performance indicators, track trends over time, and make data-driven decisions to enhance system performance.

2. Load Balanced Metrics Collection: By configuring multiple TCP endpoints within the plugin, organizations can implement load balancing for metric transmission. This use case ensures that metric delivery is both resilient and efficient, reducing the risk of data loss during high-traffic periods and maintaining a reliable flow of information to Graphite.

3. Customized Metrics Tagging: With support for Graphite tags, users can employ the Graphite plugin to enhance the granularity of their metrics. Tagging metrics with relevant information, such as application environment or service type, allows for more refined queries and analytics, enabling teams to drill down into specific areas of interest for better operational insights.

4. Enhanced Data Sanitization: Leveraging the plugin’s strict sanitization options, users can ensure that their metric names comply with Graphite’s requirements. This proactive measure eliminates potential issues arising from invalid characters in metric names, allowing for cleaner data management and more accurate visualizations.

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