keyble

keyble is a set of command line tools for controlling/interfacing with eqiva eQ-3 Bluetooth Smart Locks.

At a price of just about 60€, these Smart Locks offer an excellent price/performance ratio. But until now, these smart locks could only be controlled using the vendor's official Smartphone app, and could not be integrated into existing smart home systems.

Current status

keyble is currently in an early alpha state:

• Only the most basic features are currently implemented:
  • Registering new users
  • Opening / locking / unlocking the smart lock
• The code still needs to be improved, there are a number of bugs etc. and the code is not very elegant yet

Requirements

keyble requires the following hard- and software

• Bluetooth 4.0 compatible hardware
• Node.js (only tested with Node.js 8.x so far - Node.js 10.x does not seem to work yet, due to a problem with Node 10.x in one of the dependencies)
• Linux, OSX or Windows operating system (only really tested on Linux so far)

Installation

Global installation

By installing keyble globally, keyble's command line tools are installed in your PATH, and are therefor available from everywhere.

With Node.js/npm installed, you can install/update keyble globally by running on a command line:

$ npm install --update --global --unsafe-perm keyble

The --unsafe-perm flag seems to be necessary in order to install keyble globally via the --global flag (at least under Linux). If installing locally, without the --global flag, it works fine without the --unsafe-perm flag. This issue seems to be caused by one of keyble's dependencies (see #707). You will probably need to run the above command with sudo, at least if using Linux.

Local installation

To install/update keyble as a library/dependency instead, execute:

$ npm install --update --save keyble

Important remarks about using on Linux

For using keyble on Linux, please read these remarks about "Running without root/sudo".

Command line tools

keyble-registeruser

In order to actually control an eqiva eQ-3 Bluetooth Smart Lock, a user ID and the corresponding 128-bit user key is required. Since the original app provides no way to get these informations, it is necessary to first register a new user, using the information encoded in the QR-Code of the "Key Card"s that ship with the lock.

This is what the keyble-registeruser tool is for.

usage: keyble-registeruser [-h] [--user_name USER_NAME]
                           [--qr_code_data QR_CODE_DATA]


Register users on eqiva eQ-3 Bluetooth smart locks.

Optional arguments:
  -h, --help            Show this help message and exit.
  --user_name USER_NAME, -n USER_NAME
                        The name of the user to register (default: "PC")
  --qr_code_data QR_CODE_DATA, -q QR_CODE_DATA
                        The information encoded in the QR-Code of the key 
                        card. If not provided on the command line, the data 
                        will be read as input lines from STDIN instead

Usage example:

$ keyble-registeruser -n John -q M0123456789ABK0123456789ABCDEF0123456789ABCDEFNEQ1234567

Press and hold "Unlock" button until the yellow light flashes in order to enter pairing mode
Registering user on Smart Lock with address "01:23:56:67:89:ab", card key "0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef" and serial "NEQ1234567"...
User registered. Use arguments: --address 01:23:56:67:89:ab --user_id 1 --user_key ca78ad9b96131414359e5e7cecfd7f9e
Setting user name to "John"...
User name changed, finished registering user.

Piping data into keyble-registeruser

If the QR-Code data is not passed on the command line via the --qr_code_data/-q argument, keyble-registeruser will read the data from STDIN instead. This allows simply piping the output of a QR-Code-Reader into keyble-registeruser.

For example, if you have a Webcam and the zbar tools installed (sudo apt-get install zbar-tools), you can run:

$ zbarcam --raw | keyble-registeruser

Press and hold "Unlock" button until the yellow light flashes in order to enter pairing mode
Registering user on Smart Lock with address "01:23:56:67:89:ab", card key "0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef" and serial "NEQ1234567"...
User registered. Use arguments: --address 01:23:56:67:89:ab --user_id 1 --user_key ca78ad9b96131414359e5e7cecfd7f9e
Setting user name to "PC"...
User name changed, finished registering user.

The above command is the recommended way to register a new user under Linux.

keyble-sendcommand

With a valid user ID and user key, as obtained by running the keyble-registeruser tool, we can now actually control (=open/lock/unlock) the Smart Lock.

This is what the keyble-sendcommand tool is for.

usage: keyble-sendcommand [-h] --address ADDRESS --user_id USER_ID --user_key
                          USER_KEY [--auto_disconnect_time AUTO_DISCONNECT_TIME]
                          [--status_update_time STATUS_UPDATE_TIME]
                          [--command {lock,open,unlock,status}]
                      

Control (lock/unlock/open) an eqiva eQ-3 Bluetooth smart lock.

Optional arguments:
  -h, --help            Show this help message and exit.
  --address ADDRESS, -a ADDRESS
                        The smart lock's MAC address
  --user_id USER_ID, -u USER_ID
                        The user ID
  --user_key USER_KEY, -k USER_KEY
                        The user key
  --auto_disconnect_time AUTO_DISCONNECT_TIME, -adt AUTO_DISCONNECT_TIME
                        The auto-disconnect time, in seconds. A value of 0 
                        will deactivate auto-disconnect (usually not 
                        recommended, drains battery) (default: 15)
  --status_update_time STATUS_UPDATE_TIME, -sut STATUS_UPDATE_TIME, -t STATUS_UPDATE_TIME
                        The status update time, in seconds. A value of 0 will 
                        deactivate status updates (default: 600)
  --command {lock,open,unlock,status}, -c {lock,open,unlock,status}
                        The command to perform. If not provided on the 
                        command line, the command(s) will be read as input 
                        lines from STDIN instead

Usage example:

$ keyble-sendcommand --address 01:23:56:67:89:ab --user_id 1 --user_key ca78ad9b96131414359e5e7cecfd7f9e --command open

active
open
unlocked

Piping data into keyble-sendcommand

If the actual command/action ("open"/"lock"/"unlock"/"status") is not passed on the command line via the --command/-c argument, keyble-sendcommand will read the command(s) from STDIN instead. This allows piping the output of another program into keyble-sendcommand.

For example, if you have the mosquitto-clients tools installed (sudo apt-get install mosquitto-clients), you could easily make your Smart Lock controllable via MQTT by running a command similar to this:

$ mosquitto_sub -h 192.168.0.2 -t "door_lock/action" | keyble-sendcommand -a 01:23:56:67:89:ab -u 1 -k ca78ad9b96131414359e5e7cecfd7f9e

Assuming a MQTT broker with IP address 192.168.0.2, sending message "open" to the MQTT topic "door_lock/action" for example would then open the Smart Lock.

Beware of firmware updates

Be aware that the vendor might (at least temporarily) render this software useless with a future firmware update.

This software was developed against firmware version 1.7, which is the latest firmware version as of now (2018/09/05).

If the vendor releases a newer firmware version, better not instantly update the firmware; wait for confirmation that the new firmware version is safe.

API

Beware that since keyble is still in early alpha state, the API is likely to still change a lot, probably with backwards-incompatible changes. Only a subset of the functionality has been documented yet, and only a few usage examples are provided.

Creating a Key_Ble instance

// Require the keyble module
var keyble = require("keyble");

// Create a new Key_Ble instance that represents one specific door lock
var key_ble = new keyble.Key_Ble({
    address: "01:23:45:67:89:ab", // The bluetooth MAC address of the door lock
    user_id: 1, // The user ID
    user_key: "0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef", // The user-specific 128 bit AES key
    auto_disconnect_time: 15, // After how many seconds of inactivity to auto-disconnect from the device (0 to disable)
    status_update_time: 600 // Automatically check for status after this many seconds without status updates (0 to disable)
});

Lock / Unlock / Open the door lock

// Lock the door
key_ble.lock()
.then( () => {
    console.log("Door locked");
});

// Unlock the door
key_ble.unlock()
.then( () => {
    console.log("Door unlocked");
});

// Open the door
key_ble.open()
.then( () => {
    console.log("Door opened");
});

Listen for status changes

// Lock the door
key_ble.on("status_change", (new_status_id) => {
    console.log("New status:", new_status_id);
});