uhidctl is utility to control USB HID power relays.
This utility is designed to work for USB HID power relays which can be found on eBay or Amazon as:
For Smart Home 5V USB Relay Programmable Computer Control
This utility supports such devices with 1, 2, 4, 8 ports (16 port devices will require patching to work). Hardware that was tested to work has following characteristics (N is number of ports):
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | www.dcttech.com |
| Product | USBRelay{N} |
| Vendor ID | 0x16C0 |
| Product ID | 0x05DF |
This utility was tested to compile and work on Linux (Ubuntu/Debian, Redhat/Fedora/CentOS) and MacOS. It should be possible to compile it for Windows as well - please report if you succeed in doing that.
First, you need to install library hidapi:
- Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install libhidapi-dev - Redhat:
sudo yum install hidapi-devel - MacOS:
brew install hidapi - Windows: download hidapi
To fetch uhidctl source and compile it:
git clone https://github.com/mvp/uhidctl
cd uhidctl
make
This should generate uhidctl binary.
You can install it in your system using:
sudo make install
On Linux, you should configure udev USB permissions (otherwise you will have to run it as root using sudo uhidctl).
Simply add following line to file /etc/udev/rules.d/52-usb.rules:
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="16c0", MODE="0666"
For your udev rule changes to take effect, reboot or run:
sudo udevadm trigger --attr-match=subsystem=usb
To list all compatible relays, run uhidctl without parameters:
uhidctl
To control relay state:
uhidctl -a 1 -p 2
This means operate on default USB relay, turn power off (-a 0, or -a off)
on port 2 (-p 2). Supported actions are 0/1/2 (or off/on/cycle).
cycle means turn power off, wait some delay (configurable with -d) and turn it back on.
On Linux, you may have to run it with sudo, or to configure udev USB permissions.
If you have more than one USB relay connected, you should choose
specific relay to control using option -l.
Copyright (C) 2017-2020 Vadim Mikhailov
This file can be distributed under the terms and conditions of the GNU General Public License version 2.