A simple GPIO-controlled button for the Raspberry Pi.

• Python version 3
• RPi.GPIO (at least version 0.5.2)

Unfortunately, you will have to run the smart-button.py with super-user privileges, i.e. invoke sude ./smart-button.py.

smart-button.py [-q] [-P port] [-t timeout] [-d debounce] [-l action] [-c action]

    -q          quiet: suppress diagnostic output
    -P port     act on button connected to specified BCM port (default: 21)
    -t timeout  timeout value for long press (default: 5.0)
    -d debounce time (default: 0.15)
    -l action   the action to be run on long press
    -c action   the action to be run on normal press

smart-button.py -P 16 -c 'curl -X POST https://maker.ifttt.com/trigger/button/with/key/$YOUR_KEY'

This example connects the button on BCM port 16 to the given command. As a result, pressing the button triggers the given IFTTT action.

smart-button.py -t 3.2 -c 'echo "short press"' -l 'echo "long press"'

Prints the string „short press“ if the button is pressed quickly, or the string „long press“ when the button is held down for at least 3.2 seconds.

In combination with a systemd service, you could create a shutdown button for your Raspi as follows:

1. Copy the file shutdown.service into your platform's systemd home, e.g./etc/systemd/system on Debian.
2. Copy the file smart-button.py into /usr/local/bin (or wherever you want it to be.)
3. Start shutdown.service: sudo systemctl start shutdown.service.

The file shutdown.service could have the following contents:

[Unit]
Description=Shutdown button

[Service]
Type=simple
User=root
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/smart-button.py -q -l 'shutdown -h now'
StandardOutput=syslog

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

This software is licensed under the MIT License (MIT), see LICENSE.