Orban BETA 0.5.0 In Testing!

We are very excited to reveal to the public some previously unseen things, as well as some entirely overhauled things. We have a customer testing out this build, so it will be ironed out until it can be released. However, before we get into more of the screenshots, I feel that it is important to state EXACTLY where Orban is in terms of development to give you an idea of what's going on behind the scenes and what's taking so long.

WHAT WE HAVE WORKING:

• Orban visual voice assistant

• PANEL network interface

• IO server code

• ways to make an IO server and relay server

• Most of Netman

The voice assistant program allows for plugin manipulation, as those features will be added to Netman first in the 0.7.0 system as part of Netman Powertools. After that, some time from 0.7.8 to 0.9 we plan to have modules working for PANEL as well in the many widgets update.

Orban itself can....

• turn on and off things in your house

• set thermostat objective for Netman

• handle notification spawns

• save files and load them

• dynamically load in module code OTF

• manipulate modules

• update from USB, later online from Github

• play local files

• pull up YouTube Videos in a browser

• set/cancel/check timer

• set/cancel alarm

• tell jokes

• work without internet

• play white, brown or storm noise for sleep

• change themes

• be manipulated by a wealth of settings options

• surf the web for things

• say "never mind" after the wrong command and then say what you meant to say or do nothing to cancel command

• give feedback through a forum if needed

Broken things in Orban (As of the writing of this)

• download play or play options

• Touchscreen and Hey Orban do not work together yet

  
  

the download play option allowed you to save a video file from YouTube based on your request, and play it in a media player on top of Orban. The play option did the same thing, but downloads an MP3 instead and plays it in the background of the program itself. This is not a tremendous issue as pulling things up in the web browser as well as playing local MP3s in your media folder inside of Orban's files is still possible. We can't exactly address this yet, as the module dependent on this functionality, pytube, was still not repaired as of the writing of this.

as for the touchscreen, TK just sucks. It will be fixed soon.

Here are some screenshots of Orban, as well as its plugin manager and updater.

Orban VVA (Visual Voice Assistant)

I am aware that this is an old screenshot, Menus haven't changed though.

Updated OOBE (Out Of Box Experience)

Plugin Manager

Update Manager

Major Breakthroughs in PANEL!

• you can now delete a widget or add a widget wherever you want to and save that, or cancel

• you can now have 5 pages of widgets

• UI cleaned up significantly

Panel currently has basic widgets and the ability to manipulate them as well. There is a weather widget always on the top as well as a clock. It is relatively primitive at the moment, but it does get the job done. It can receive information from the I/O server and display it, that's what is important for now.

Panel Idle

Add or Remove Widget

Widget Vendors (integrated ones and modules in the future)

0.5 Test Tools Vendor

Finally, the stuff we can't screenshot.

NETMAN progress

Netman and its associated AutoPilot features are in their infancy at only some 200 lines long, but that's our next point of interest. Netman can currently save all incoming sensor info as a CSV file, as well as keep track of the temp and humidity indoors and outdoors, making it possible to open a vent instead of turn on the air conditioner if the conditions outside allow for it. This isn't very adjustable yet and has randomly crashed, but it is only 200 lines long receiving the least amount of work on the project so far.

I/O server..?

I'm sorry, but i don't have anything to report on I/O server and I might just update this file over the network subtly, as it only grabs sensor info and spits it onto the network. The idea is that if you need to re-program your own I/O server to use something other than a raspberry pi, it will be easy enough to do so. The included I/O server files are just pre-made systems that will re-generate every time you add more sensors through updates.

What about relay server?

Ok, now you're scraping the bottom of the barrel. Relay servers literally just serve as a way to run shell scripts (on/off 1-10.py) over SSH. It looks like turning a GPIO pin on or off. I'm glad that you express such curiosity for this project, but this is incredibly unremarkable.

Conclusion

As you can see with this comprehensive and overwhelming blog post, Orban is genuinely most of the way done, and a beta 0.5 build is very soon to come. We hope to see you back by November 29th, Our projected release date.