Novation Launchpad as a Home Automation Input Board

I really like physical buttons.

And well documented hardware, that comes with the option to tinker around. Novation Launchpads are MIDI-Controllers for live perfomances and electronic music stuff. 8x8 Buttons, 2 LEDs each and a simple MIDI communication interface. Novation released a short, but sufficient documentation about how to talk to your device and makes it very easy to use your hardware for your own purpose (some kudos to novation here!).

Since Touchscreens are a hassle when it comes to simple tasks like hitting a specific button to switch lights in a nearly unconsciousnes state, resulting from waking up moments ago, I needed another solution for my home automation system.

Launchpad-Connector is a python daemon to bind python scripts to Launchpad-buttons. Connect a launchpad to your computer/pi/whatever and run the daemon. Scripts can be registered as subscribers to button events.

Links:

• Novations Product Page
• http://novationmusic.de/midi-controllers-digital-dj/launchpad
• Novation Launchpad Documentation
• http://d19ulaff0trnck.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/novation/downloads/4080/launchpad-programmers-reference.pdf
• source code on github
• https://github.com/volzotan/launchpad-connector