Information Blog: api

Using the Google Voice C API

First of all, this obviously isnt an official Google API. I wrote it because I wanted one in C++ and couldnt find one that worked.

That being said, the code is on github here (in the TextCommand folder) and is available under GPLv3 for anyone to use.
I know this could (maybe even should) have its own github project but since I use it for my home automation projects, its included in the PiAUISuite. That being said, the current gvapi binary is also compiled for the Pi. So you will need to run make gvapi if you want to use it on any other linux machine.

To include the C++ code in your own project, you just need to include gvoice.h in your file and then you should be able to access the GoogleVoice class. An excellent example to look at is gvapi.cpp since it shows how to interact with it. You should need only to call Init and Login, then you should be able to do any of the Google voice functions.

If you only to use gtextcommand to send commands to your pi, see here. If you want to send or check SMS without having to include the source in your code/project, just use the gvapi program. It can get contacts, send, receive, and delete SMS. It also comes in with built in spoof protection (this is included in GoogleVoice::CheckSMS).

Heres a quick video demo as an example of the kinds of things you can do with gvapi

Using the gvapi program is fairly simple and its man page is below:

gvapi

gvapi - Use of Google voice API in order to send and receive SMS

SYNOPSIS

gvapi [OPTIONS]...

DESCRIPTION

gvapi was compiled for use with home automation on the Raspberry Pi but will work on any linux system with an internet connection. It uses curl and boost regex in order to login and stores the cookie in /dev/shm. It only logs in once every 24 hours to save time. It supports a multitude of different options and parameters. For help/comments/questions, feel free to e-mail me at help@stevenhickson.com. I answer sporadically but do eventually respond.

OPTIONS

-?: Same as -h
-c: Checks your incoming text messages to see if you have anything unread. It will mark it whatever it outputs as read unless you also use the -r flag. If you include a number with the -n flag, you can specify it to only check messages received from that number. You can also use the -k flag to specify that the message must start with a certain keyword.
-d: Sets debug mode on. You can also specify debug mode from 1 - 3, where 3 is the most verbose.
Ex: gvapi -c -d2
-h: Asks for some quick general use help for gvapi.
-i: Outputs the contacts of your google voice account in the form name==number
-k KEYWORD: Sets a keyword that has to be in the beginning of the text message for it to be returned. This is useful as a password for parsing only certain messages.
-m MESSAGE: Sends the message you specify. This should be in quotes if it contains special characters or a space. The number also has to be specified otherwise it wont have a message to send
Ex: gvapi -n +15551234 -m Hello
-n NUMBER: Can be used with the -c flag to check messages from a certain number or the -m flag to send a message. Can be in a format without the country code, with just the country code, or with a plus sign and the country code. If the formost, it interprets it as a US number.
Ex: gvapi -n 5551234 -c
-p PASSWORD: Can be used with the -u flag to log in manually. If not specified, the program uses the default username and password specified in ~/.gv
-r: Receives and deletes SMS messges. Can be used with the -c flag or without. It is the same as the -c flag but instead of just marking the messages as read. It deletes them.
-u USERNAME: Can be used with the -p flag to log in manually. See the -p flag for more details. Cannot be used without the -p flag.
-v: Outputs version and creater information

AUTHOR

Steven Hickson (help@stevenhickson.com)

BUGS

No known bugs. To report bugs, send a clear description to help@stevenhickson.comSince this program is fairly crude, user typos could cause crashes/failed responses. Please read the man page thoroughly before submitting a bug.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2013 Steven Hickson. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it as long as you give credit to the author and include this license. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

HISTORY

This is the second major version of this program

Hacking up an Instacart API

The first thing we need is a service that picks out food and delivers it to you. There are many of these, but as I live in Atlanta, I chose Instacart. Now we need an API. Unfortunately, Instacart doesnt provide one, so we will need to make our own.

Head over to instacart.com and set up an account and login. Then right click and view source. You are looking for a line in the source like this:
FirebaseUrl="https://instacart.firebaseio.com/carts/SOME_HASH_STRING_HERE

That string is what you need to access your instacart account. Open up a terminal and type:

curl https://instacart.firebaseio.com/carts/YOUR_HASH_STRING.json

You should get back a response that looks like this:

{"checkout_state":{"workflow_state":"shopping"},"items":{"1069829":{"created_at":1.409336316211E9,"qty":1,"user_id":YOUR_USER_ID}},"users":{"-JXAzAp6rgtM4u2dV2tI":{"id":YOUR_USER_ID"name":"StevenH"},"-Jj2_kFsu5hvZRhx4KX1":{"id":YOUR_USER_ID,"name":"Steven H"},"-Jp8VvDusSDOyEiJ0J5D":{"id":YOUR_USER_ID,"name":"Steven H"}}}

Now we just need to figure out what different items are. Pick a store and start adding items to your cart and run the same command. If I add some fruit (oranges, bananas, strawberries, pears) to my cart and then run the same curl request. I get something like this:

{"checkout_state":{"workflow_state":"shopping"},"items":{"1069829":{"created_at":1.409336316211E9,"qty":1,"user_id":YOUR_USER_ID},"8182033":{"created_at":1.431448385824E9,"qty":2,"user_id":YOUR_USER_ID},"8583398":{"created_at":1.431448413452E9,"qty":3,"user_id":YOUR_USER_ID},"8585519":{"created_at":1.431448355207E9,"qty":3,"user_id":YOUR_USER_ID},"8601780":{"created_at":1.424915467829E9,"qty":3,"user_id":YOUR_USER_ID},"8602830":{"created_at":1.43144840911E9,"qty":1,"user_id":YOUR_USER_ID}},"users":{"-JXAzAp6rgtM4u2dV2tI":{"id":22232545,"name":"StevenH"},"-Jj2_kFsu5hvZRhx4KX1":{"id":YOUR_USER_ID,"name":"Steven H"},"-Jp8VvDusSDOyEiJ0J5D":{"id":YOUR_USER_ID,"name":"Steven H"}}}

Now empty your cart and we will make sure we can add all those things to your cart with a curl request. Take your response from earlier, and use it in the following line:

curl -X PATCH -d YOUR_FULL_CART_RESPONSE https://instacart.firebaseio.com/carts/YOUR_HASH_STRING.json

Now, your cart should be full of fruit again. Now we just need a way to recognize whether your fridge has fruit or not.

Detecting fruit in your fridge

For this we just need a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Project Board - 1GB RAM - 900 MHz Quad-Core CPU and a Raspberry PI 5MP Camera Board Module.
Set up your camera following these instructions and you will be ready to go. Set up your camera module in your fridge (or wherever you store your fruit).

We are going to use the Caffe framework for recognizing whether fruit is in the refrigerator drawer or not. You can read about how to do that here.
We are going to set this up similarly. Run the following commands to set things up:

git clone https://github.com/StevenHickson/AutonomousFridge.git
sudo apt-get install python python-pycurl python-lxml python-pip
sudo pip install grab sudo apt-get install apache2
mkdir -p /dev/shm/images
sudo ln -s /dev/shm/images /var/www/images

Then you must forward your router from port 5005 to port 80 on the Pi
Now you can edit test.sh with your info and run ./test.sh
Or add the following line to cron with crontab -e:
00 17 * * * /home/pi/AutonomousFridge/test.sh

This script takes a picture with raspistill and puts it in a symlinked directory in memory accessible from port 80. Then it sends that URL to the Caffe web demo and gets the result.
The Caffe demo shows how well it classifies the existence of fruit as shown below:

The end result of this is a script that runs every day at 5 pm. When your fridge doesnt have fruit, it adds a bunch of fruit to your Instacart cart. You can order it at your leisure to make sure you are home when it arrives. You could also use my PiAUISuite to get it to text you about your fruit status. It can be alot of fun to make a proof of concept of an old urban legend.

Consider donating to further my tinkering since I do all this and help people out for free.

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