Accessing and using Node-Red may be needed to complete many possible tasks to customize eRVin for your RV. Tasks such as configuring Virtual Smart Home Alexa Account integration (eRVinOS v0.6x and above), or customizing the lighting buttons to match the configuration of your specific RV, or updating a particular “flow” with a new version. Don’t worry, it’s a graphical point and click environment and easy to work with.

This post describes how to connect to the Node-Red “palette”.

What is Node-Red?

Node-Red is a graphical, drag and drop, point and click programming environment that uses “nodes” that are “wired” together to do things that create a “flow” of information. The vast majority of eRVin runs in Node-Red.

How to Connect to Node-Red:

It’s easy. From a Mac or PC (something with a relatively large screen) on the same network as your eRVin system, open your favorite browser and connect to Node-Red by simply typing:

http://coachproxyos:1880     or    http://192.168.xxx.xxx:1880

(Substitute your actual eRVin IP address for 192.168.xxx.xxx)

This will connect you to the Node-Red application running on your eRVin system, the main part of the screen is known as the Palette. It will look something like this:

Pretty colorful, eh? A quick overview:

• The left most panel contains a list of all the different types of Nodes, if you mouse over them a brief description will pop up. If you want to use one of these nodes, you simply click and drag and drop it onto the Palette.
• The main large section is the Pallete and contains the “flows”. This one has several flows within it. Notice the tabs at the top, those are other palettes containing other flows and in this case the tabs are primarily used to organize them by function. The gray lines between nodes are “wires” that tell the information where to go (or flow to) next. Generally the information flows from left to right. You will notice in this screenshot squarish gray boxes with an arrow – these are “virtual wires” that connect to another node somewhere and are used primarily to keep down the clutter. In this case they go to a node in the Alexa tab.
• The far right panel contains tabs for Info, Help, Debug, Configuration, Context Data and Dashboard. More about all this in future posts.

That’s it! Now go back to the post that sent you here and carry on!