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Tilt Pi smart home integration, free and open source

Tilt Pi integration for Gladys Assistant

Unofficial: your Tilt hydrometers via the Tilt Pi app, locally: gravity and temperature.

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Unofficial connector, not affiliated with Tilt Hydrometer (Baron Brew Equipment). It brings into Gladys the Tilt hydrometers floating in your fermenters (beer, wine, cider, mead...), read from the Tilt Pi app running on a Raspberry Pi on your network, through its local HTTP API, without any cloud.

This integration has never been tested with a real Tilt Pi. It follows the tilt-pi library used by the Tilt Pi integration of Home Assistant. Please report what you see on the Gladys forum.

What you need​

  • One or more Tilt (or Tilt Pro, Tilt HD).
  • A Raspberry Pi running the Tilt Pi app (the official Tilt Pi image), on the same network as Gladys, that shows your Tilts on its web page (http://<Raspberry Pi address>:1880/). The Tilt Pi listens to the Tilts over Bluetooth, on its Raspberry Pi: Gladys never uses Bluetooth (a Gladys integration runs in a container without Bluetooth).

What you get​

One Gladys device per Tilt colour ("Tilt Red", "Tilt Blue"...):

FeatureUnitNotes
Specific gravity (SG)none ("SG" in name)the gravity, about 1.000 for water
Temperature°Ca probe: kept out of the room temperature average
  • Gladys has no category nor unit for a density: the gravity is an "unknown" sensor without unit, its unit (SG) only written in its name. No unit is invented.
  • The colour is the identity of a Tilt on a Tilt Pi: the device of a colour stays the same, even when you swap the Tilt of that colour.
  • The feature names are in English; rename them at creation if you like.

Installation​

  1. Install the integration from the Gladys catalog (Gladys 5.1 or later).
  2. On the Configuration screen, enter the Tilt Pi address (the IP address of the Raspberry Pi, e.g. 192.168.1.30, with :port only if it is not 1880).
  3. Click Test the Tilt Pi: the message shows the gravity and the temperature of each Tilt.
  4. Open the Discovery tab and add the devices.

Configuration​

  • Tilt Pi address: an IP address or a host name, with a port if it is not 1880; http:// is accepted, not https:// (the Tilt Pi page has none), nor a path or a user. Give the Raspberry Pi a fixed address in your router. A new address is read at once (one request a minute at most).
  • Read interval: 5 minutes by default, 1 to 60.
  • No unit setting: the Tilt Pi API always gives the temperature in °F, even when its page shows °C (that is what the official flow of the app does). The integration converts it to °C, and Gladys shows it in the unit of your profile. If the API temperature disagrees with what the Tilt Pi page shows, it is not sent and the status says so.

How often the Tilt Pi is read​

  • A read sends one request: GET /macid/all (every Tilt the Tilt Pi hears).
  • Never faster than the interval, counted from the last read on a monotonic clock (a clock change never reads sooner): not by the test button, a reconnection to Gladys, an unchanged saved configuration, the Discovery tab nor a restart of the container (the instant of the last request is kept under /data, written before the request leaves). Before the interval has passed, the test button shows the last values and when the next read can happen.
  • Read only: the integration never writes anything to the Tilt Pi.
  • When the Tilt Pi answers 429 or a 5xx error, it is left alone for the Retry-After it gives, else 5 minutes, then 10, 20...; always between 1 minute and 6 hours, also across a restart.
  • No Tilt heard (between two brews, or right after the Tilt Pi cleared its slots because a Tilt was silent more than 2 minutes) is normal: the Tilt Pi answers {}, the status stays connected and the known Tilts show "no recent reading".
  • No answer, a page that is not a Tilt Pi (404, an answer that is neither a list nor {}) or a refused access: tried again at the next interval only.

Which values reach Gladys​

  • Each reading is handed to Gladys once. A reading is told apart by its time (timeStamp, always given by the Tilt Pi), else by its temperature, gravity, MAC address and raw timeStamp (never by the signal nor the clock fields the Tilt Pi rewrites without a new reading).
  • A reading at most 3 minutes old is sent as the current value; from 3 to 15 minutes, it is sent dated (Gladys stores it at its time and no scene fires).
  • A silent Tilt (out of range, flat battery, out of the fermenter) is never shown alive: when its reading no longer changes, nothing is sent, and the status shows "no recent reading". A reading dated more than 15 minutes ago, measured with the Tilt Pi clock (the Date of its answer; the age alone decides, so a Raspberry Pi set back to an old time loses no reading), is never sent. Without a time, the first reading seen of a Tilt is not sent: only a reading that changed since the previous read proves the Tilt alive.
  • A value out of range (gravity outside 0.950 to 1.200, temperature outside -10 to 60 °C, what a wort can reach) is never sent nor clamped; the status reports it. The 0 °F the Tilt Pi gives when its calibration fails is thus left out.
  • Two Tilts of the same colour: without the "ID by MAC" option of the Tilt Pi, it has one entry per colour, filled in turn by both. The integration keeps a fingerprint of the MAC address of each colour: when it changes, nothing is sent for that colour and the status shows "MAC changed: two Tilts of this colour, or a Tilt replaced". A replaced Tilt (the old address never back) comes back when the same new address is read twice in a row. If an address already replaced comes back within 24 hours (A, then B, then A again: two Tilts taking turns), the colour is locked: nothing is sent for it, and the status shows "two Tilts of this colour (MAC addresses taking turns): only one Tilt per colour is supported", until a single address has been read alone for 24 hours, in at least 12 reads (half the reads of a day at the chosen interval). The lock is kept under /data: neither a restart nor a saved configuration lifts it. Only one Tilt per colour is supported. The "ID by MAC" option of the Tilt Pi gives each Tilt its own entry (RED:aa:bb:...), read as the red colour; but if two entries have the same colour, neither is sent either ("two Tilts of this colour").
  • A device created later gets the last reading, dated, if it is less than 15 minutes old.

What is kept under /data​

The address read, the instant of the last request, the pause, and for each colour met the key of the last reading seen (its time, or a short digest of the entry) and an 8-character fingerprint of the MAC address of the Tilt (never the address in clear), never the values. The file is written at most once per minute, but for a pause or a new colour.

8 colours at most; 50 entries at most are read; an answer larger than 256 KB, or slower than 15 seconds, is dropped.

External ids​

ext:tilt-pi:tilt:<colour> (black, blue, green, orange, pink, purple, red, yellow), then :gravity or :temperature. These ids never change.

Troubleshooting​

  • "no answer": check the address, and that the Tilt Pi page http://<address>:1880/ opens from your network.
  • "no Tilt Pi at this address (404)": another service answers at this address; check the port.
  • "no recent reading": the Tilt Pi has not heard this Tilt lately (Bluetooth range, battery, Tilt lying out of the liquid).
  • Logs: the level is set with the LOG_LEVEL variable.

Privacy​

The integration only talks to the Tilt Pi, on your local network, over HTTP. Of its answers it keeps only the colour, the gravity and the temperature.

Credits​

Built after michaelheyman/tilt-pi (MIT, Michael Heyman), the library of the Tilt Pi integration of Home Assistant: the route, the fields and their units are ported to JavaScript. Its notice is in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md. Tilt is a trademark of its owner; this connector is free and unofficial.

Configuration settings​

These are the settings Tilt Pi asks for in its configuration screen in Gladys.

SettingTypeRequiredDescription
Tilt Pi in GladyssectionNoUnofficial connector, not affiliated with Tilt Hydrometer (Baron Brew Equipment). It reads the Tilt hydrometers floating in your fermenters through the Tilt Pi app running on a Raspberry Pi on your network, by its local HTTP API, without any cloud: the specific gravity and the temperature of each Tilt, one Gladys device per Tilt colour. The Tilt Pi listens to the Tilts over Bluetooth on its Raspberry Pi; Gladys never uses Bluetooth. Read only: nothing is ever changed on the Tilt Pi. Never tested with a real Tilt Pi.
Tilt Pi addressstringNoThe IP address (or host name) of the Raspberry Pi running Tilt Pi, with a port only if it is not 1880 (the port of the Tilt Pi page). Preferably give it a fixed address in your router; if it changes, enter the new one: the devices and their history are kept.
Read interval (minutes)numberNoEach read sends one request to the Tilt Pi. Nothing reads sooner, not even the test button, a reconnection or a restart.

How to install Tilt Pi in Gladys​

  1. In Gladys, open Integrations: Tilt Pi appears in the catalog, next to the native integrations, with a community badge.
  2. Click Install. Gladys pulls the Docker image (ghcr.io/lm1lc3n7/gladys-tilt-pi:0.1.1), starts it in a sandbox isolated from the core, and generates the integration's interface (devices, discovery and configuration).
  3. Open the Configuration screen of the integration, fill in the settings, and save.
  4. You can also install it directly from its repository URL: https://github.com/LM1LC3N7/gladys-tilt-pi.

Tilt Pi requires Gladys >=5.1.0. The catalog inside Gladys refreshes every hour, so a new version becomes available at most one hour after its release.

Not running Gladys yet? It is free and open source: follow the installation guide to get started.

About external integrations​

Tilt Pi is an external integration: a community integration packaged as a Docker container and published on GitHub, that Gladys installs in one click and runs in a sandbox isolated from its core. It is published and maintained by LM1LC3N7, not by the Gladys core team.

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