Code for make blink sticks talk to cheer lights. More info at http://www.cheerlights.com/subscribe-to-cheerlights-feed and blinkstick.com

gistfile1.txt

#!/usr/bin/python 

"""
Download this script and run it as

```
python thenameofthefile.py
```

or 
```
chmod 755 thenameofthefile.py
```

and run it 

```
./thenameofthefile.py
```

It will run forever checking and changing the colour every 30 seconds.

"""

import requests, json, time

# https://github.com/arvydas/blinkstick-python/wiki
from blinkstick import blinkstick

# url to fetch from
cheer_lights_url = "http://api.thingspeak.com/channels/1417/field/1/last.json"

def fetch_current_colour():
    try:
        # grab the colour
        r = requests.get(cheer_lights_url)
        # anything else than 200 from the HTTP request means it failed
        if (r.status_code != 200):
            print "Unable to fetch current colour, quitting"
            exit(1)

        # reply from cheer lights looks like
        # {
        #    created_at: "2013-12-22T15:37:40Z",
        #    entry_id: 10323,
        #    field1: "purple"
        # }
        raw_json = json.loads(r.content)

        # return the colour from the loaded json
        return raw_json.get('field1')
    except Exception as e:
        print "Unable to fetch current colour, quitting because %s" % (e)

def light_up():
    # get the colour
    colour = fetch_current_colour()
    print "setting to %s" % (colour)

    # cycle over all the blinksticks setting the colour
    for bstick in blinkstick.find_all():
        bstick.set_color(name=colour)

if __name__ == '__main__':

    # loop forever
    while (True):
        # set the colour
        light_up()
        # wait for a bit
        time.sleep(30)

At line 25 there is a call to import requests. Requests "is an elegant and simple HTTP library for Python" and can be installed with:

$ pip install requests