Light Phone SMS Gateway

This adds a simple SMS gateway that Light Phone 2 (or any phone with SMS for that matter) can ping with useful commands.

This is meant to fill any functionality gaps missing from the phone while the Light Phone team works on adding things like directions.

• Setup
• Cost
• Supported Commands
  • details returns Google Maps place details
  • directions texts you Google Maps directions
  • h (help) shows available commands
  • ping tiny command for testing your gateway
  • tip calculates the tip at a restaurant
• Options
  • Sender whitelist
• Similar projects
• Contributing a new command
  • Creating a command
  • Registering the command
• Developing locally with ngrok

Setup

This repo works out of the box on Heroku. The setup guide assumes you already have a Heroku account and the Heroku CLI app installed. If you don't have these things, Google how to set it up - it should only be a few minutes. If this is a lie, come back and yell at me in GH issues.

# clone this repo
git clone git@github.com:dbalatero/light-phone-sms-gateway.git

# create a new Heroku app
heroku create my-cool-sms-gateway

# push to heroku
git push heroku master

If you visit your app (https://my-cool-sms-gateway.herokuapp.com), you should see an OK in the browser.

The next step is to wire a Twilio phone number to your new app:

1. Sign up for a Twilio account
2. Login to the dashboard
3. Create a new phone number
4. Click the phone number to Edit it
5. Scroll down to the Messaging section
6. Set up a webhook to POST https://my-cool-sms-gateway.herokuapp.com/gateway like so:

Finally, text h to your new phone number to make sure it's up and running.

Cost

This service isn't free to run:

• Twilio costs $0.0075 (at time of writing) per SMS.
• Responses might come back batched as multiple SMS messages.
• A static phone number from them is $1.00/mo.

However, you need to do a cost/benefit analysis. What is the value of ditching your smartphone and regaining your focus? For me, I would easily pay someone $100/mo if they could guarantee that I would be more focused and less stressed out by technology. YMMV, of course. Just please don't have a kneejerk reaction to the cost - make sure you really weigh the pros and cons of running this service!

Supported Commands

Here are the currently supported commands. If you want to add more commands, see Contributing a new command.

details

This command will text you the available info about a specific place listed on Google Maps. If there are more than one match, the command returns a list of the top 10 results instead.

NOTE: this command does not factor in the location of your phone.

Syntax: details <place> Extra cost: consult Google Maps API fees

Params:

• place - a description of the place, as precise as possible

Setup:

• Get an API key for Google Maps
• heroku config:set GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY=...

Examples:

-> details korean restaurant victoria bc

(1) NARU Korean Restaurant, Wharf Street, Victoria, BC, Canada
(2) Cera Korean Restaurant, Pandora Avenue, Victoria, BC, Canada
(3) Han Korean Restaurant, Johnson Street, Victoria, BC, Canada
(4) Sura Korean Restaurant, Douglas Street, Victoria, BC, Canada
(5) Sumi Korean Restaurant, Victoria Drive, Vancouver, BC, Canada

-> details naru victoria bc

NARU Korean Restaurant
1218 Wharf St, Victoria, BC V8W 1T8, Canada
Phone: (250) 590-5298
Rating: 4.5
Closed now
Hours:
* Monday: 11:30 AM - 4:00 PM, 5:00 - 9:30 PM
* Tuesday: 11:30 AM - 4:00 PM, 5:00 - 9:30 PM
* Wednesday: 11:30 AM - 4:00 PM, 5:00 - 9:30 PM
* Thursday: 11:30 AM - 4:00 PM, 5:00 - 9:30 PM
* Friday: 11:30 AM - 4:00 PM, 5:00 - 9:30 PM
* Saturday: 11:30 AM - 4:00 PM, 5:00 - 9:30 PM
* Sunday: Closed

directions

This command will give you Google Maps directions from start to destination.

Syntax: directions [mode] <start> to <destination> Extra cost: consult Google Maps API fees

Params:

• mode - one of rail bus transit walk bike drive, defaults to transit
• start* - your starting location, e.g. 1234 Fake Street, seattle, wa 98123
• destination* - your destination, e.g. university of washington

Setup:

• Get an API key for Google Maps
• heroku config:set GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY=...

Examples:

-> directions rail Smith Tower to University of Washington

18 mins (4.4 mi) to Seattle, WA 98195, USA

Walk to Pioneer Square Station (3 mins)
1. Head northwest on 2nd Ave toward James St (213 ft, 1 min)
2. Turn right onto James St (322 ft, 2 mins)
3. Turn left onto 3rd Ave. Destination will be on the right (157 ft, 1 min)

Light rail towards University Of Washington Station (11 mins)
1. Board Link light rail (Sound Transit) from Pioneer Square Station at 3:39pm
2. Get off at University of Washington [[Station]] at 3:50pm

Walk to Seattle, WA 98195, USA (4 mins)
1. Head south (85 ft, 1 min)
2. Turn right toward Montlake Blvd NE (220 ft, 1 min)
3. Turn left onto Montlake Blvd NE. Destination will be on the right (0.1 mi, 2 mins)

-> directions rail Barclays Center, Brooklyn, NY to Madison Square Garden

25 mins (6.1 mi) to 4 Pennsylvania Plaza, New York, NY 10001, USA

Walk to Atlantic Avenue Barclays Center Station (3 mins)
1. Head northeast toward Atlantic Ave (131 ft, 1 min)
2. Turn left onto Atlantic Ave. Destination will be on the left (135 ft, 1 min)
3. Take entrance Barclays Center entrance (456 ft, 2 mins)

Subway towards Harlem - 148 St (21 mins)
1. Board 3 (MTA New York City Transit) from Atlantic Avenue Barclays Center Station at 6:32pm
2. Get off at 34 St - Penn Station at 6:52pm

Walk to 4 Pennsylvania Plaza, New York, NY 10001, USA (1 min)
1. Take exit 7th Ave & 33rd St at NW corner (69 ft, 1 min)
2. Head southeast on W 33rd St toward 7th Ave/Fashion Ave (66 ft, 1 min)
3. Turn right onto 7th Ave/Fashion Ave. Destination will be on the right (194 ft, 1 min)

-> directions walk SF Moma to Japanese gardens, san francisco, ca

1 hour 30 mins (4.2 mi) to Japanese Tea Garden, 75 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr, San Francisco, CA 94118, USA
Head northwest on 3rd St toward Minna St (1 min)
Turn left onto Mission St (11 mins)
Turn right onto 6th St (3 mins)
Turn left onto Market St. Pass by CVS (on the left in 0.2mi) (9 mins)
Slight right onto Hayes St. Pass by Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen (on the left in 1.2mi) (49 mins)
Slight right (4 mins)
Turn right (1 min)
Turn left (1 min)
Turn right (6 mins)
Turn left (3 mins)
Turn left toward Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr (1 min)
Turn right onto Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr. Destination will be on the right (2 mins)

h

Get a list of commands, or get help for a specific command.

Syntax: h [command] Extra cost: none

Params:

• command - optional, set it to the name of a known command to get help

Setup: none

Running h [command] will give you the help text for a specific command.

Examples:

-> h

Available commands: directions, h, ping

-> h ping

ping: returns a pong

ping

Syntax: ping Params: none Setup: none Extra cost: none

Examples:

-> ping

pong

tip

Get the tip from your bill amount and tip percentage.

Syntax: tip [percentage] [amount] Extra cost: none

Params:

• percentage - the percentage of the amount to tip
• amount - the initial amount on which to tip

Examples:

-> tip 20 1234.56

Tip: 246.91

Options

Sender whitelist

If you don't want everyone to be able to use your app, you can add a sender whitelist. If you add such a whitelist, only the senders (i.e., phone numbers) in it will be able to receive information via the SMS commands.

The whitelist is completely optional and you can edit or remove it at any time.

Extra cost: None (possible savings)

Setup:

• heroku config:set SENDER_WHITELIST=...
• You can add as many comma-separated phone numbers as you wish
• The phone numbers can contain hyphens but no spaces or parentheses
• Include +, the country code, and the area code in the phone number
• Example: heroku config:set SENDER_WHITELIST=+18001234567,+1-800-765-4321

Similar Projects

Here are some similar projects to this that might fit your needs better:

• iMessage Light Phone Proxy - this requires an always-on Mac and can proxy iMessage/SMS from your computer's Messages.app to your Light Phone. Good if you want to try to maintain that blue text bubble with your friends, and still use desktop Messages.

Contributing a new command

To add a command, you need to do two things:

1. Create a command in lib/commands/my_command.rb
2. Register the command in lib/commands.rb

Creating a command

To create a new command, it needs to conform to the interface in lib/command/base.rb. Let's make a simple command that adds two numbers:

# lib/command/add.rb
module Commands
  class AddNumbers < Base
    extend T::Sig

    # This is the command name that someone will use when texting
    sig { override.returns(String) }
    def self.name
      'add'
    end

    # This is the help text someone will get back if they text `h add` to
    # the service.
    sig { override.returns(String) }
    def self.help
      <<~HELP
        add [num] [num2]: adds two numbers together

        Example: add 2 4
        Returns: 6
      HELP
    end

    # This returns the response SMS that we want to send back.
    sig { override.returns(String) }
    def response_body
      # arg_text contains everything after the command name.
      # E.g., if someone sends in `add 2 4`, arg_text will contain the string
      # `2 4`
      matches = arg_text.match(/^(?<num1>\d+)\s+(?<num2>\d+)$/)

      # Send back help text if they put the wrong command in
      return help unless matches

      num1 = matches[:num1].to_i
      num2 = matches[:num2].to_i

      result = num1 + num2

      # Send back the sum as an SMS
      result.to_s
    end
  end
end

Registering the command

To register the new add command we just made, add this line to lib/commands.rb:

require_relative './commands/add'

Next, in the same file, add Commands::AddNumbers to the list of commands in the def self.all method.

This should be all you need to do to hook your new command up to the gateway!

Developing locally with ngrok

The easiest way to test any new commands you write is to use ngrok.

1. brew cask install ngrok
2. Run rackup from the repo root (boots a web server on port 4567)
3. Run ngrok http 4567 to tunnel an external URL to your localhost:4567 server

Once the tunnel is up:

1. Go to the Twilio console
2. Click your phone number
3. Scroll down to Messaging
4. Set the webhook URL to https://whatever.ngrok.io/gateway as an HTTP POST (replace "whatever" with your URL):

Thanks

Thanks to these folks for contributing:

• @l33loo - added details and tip commands, and phone whitelisting!