ps4-waker

Wake your PS4 over LAN (and a few other tricks) with help from the Playstation App.

Requirements

• A PS4, of course
• The PS4 Second Screen App, installed on your phone or tablet of choice
• A computer
• All of the above on the same LAN

Usage

You can either install it globally with npm i ps4-waker -g (>= Node 6) or execute it directly in a >= Node 7 environment with npx ps4-waker and run for example:

npx ps4-waker --help

to get the following usage information:

ps4-waker - Wake your PS4 (and more!) with help from the Playstation App

Usage:
  ps4-waker [options]                       Wake PS4 device(s)
  ps4-waker [options] check                 Check a device's status
  ps4-waker [options] osk-submit [text]     Submit the OSK, optionally
                                            providing the text
  ps4-waker [options] remote <key-name...>  Send remote key-press event(s)
  ps4-waker [options] search                Search for devices
  ps4-waker [options] standby               Request the device enter
                                            standby/rest mode
  ps4-waker [options] start <titleId>       Start a specified title id
  ps4-waker --help | -h | -?                Shows this help message.
  ps4-waker --version | -v                  Show package version.

Options:
  --bind | -b <ip>             Bind to a specific network adapter IP, if
                               you have multiple
  --bind-port | -p <port>      Bind on a specific port, if you need to
                               route specifically
  --credentials | -c <file>    Specify credentials file
  --device | -d <ip>           Specify IP address of a specific PS4
  --failfast                   Don't request credentials if none
  --skip-login                 Don't automatically login
  --pin <pin-code>             Manual pin-code registration
  --pass <passcode>            Provide passcode for login, if needed
  --timeout | -t <time>        Stop searching after <time> milliseconds;
                               the default timeout, if unspecified, is 10
                               seconds

Device selection:
  For any command, there are four possible conditions based on the flags
  you've specified:
    1. Neither -t nor -d: Will act on the first device found; this is for
       households with a single device on the network
    2. Just -t: Will act on every device found within <time> millseconds
    3. Just -d: Will search for at most 10 seconds (the default timeout)
       for and only act on the provided device, quitting if found
    4. Both -t and -d: Will search for at most <time> seconds for and only
       act on the provided device, qutting early if found.

Checking device status:
  The "check" command provides output similar to "search," but only for
  the first matching device found (see above). In addition, it will exit
  with code '0' only if the device is awake; if it is in standby, it
  will exit with code '1', and in any other situation it will exit with
  code '2'. This command is intended to simplify initial state detection
  for home automation users.

Key names:
  Button names are case insensitive, and can be one of:
    up, down, left, right, enter, back, option, ps
  You cannot send the actual x, square, etc. buttons.
  A string of key presses may be provided, separated by spaces, and they
   will be sent sequentially.
  In addition, a key name may be followed by a colon and a duration in
   milliseconds to hold that key, eg: ps4-waker remote ps:1000

For most cases, simply run the executable with no arguments. On first run, you will be asked to connect to the "PS4-Waker" Playstation, and to turn on your PS4 and go to the "add devices" screen to get a pin code, and enter that. After that, future executions should just work.

Note that for the initial registration we have to be able to bind to port 987, since the PS4 seems to be hard-coded to attempt to connect on that port. On most systems, this port is privileged, which means we need super-user permission to bind to it. If run on a system with sudo, we will attempt to use that to restart and prompt for permissions, and will then relinquish those elevated permissions using setuid immediately after binding to the port, so that the credentials file is not created as root (and to minimize any potential risk involved with holding root privileges). If you don't want this behavior, you can use the --failfast option.

Scripting API

For finer control, especially in a home-automation context, you may want to use the Device API. The Device API is a high-level abstraction on top of the old Waker and Detector APIs (which are still around, of course, if you need them). You use it like this:

const {Device} = require('ps4-waker');
 
var ps4 = new Device();
ps4.turnOn().then(() => ps4.close());

Most methods on the Device object return a Promise and can be used with async/await. The Device will automatically attempt to maintain an active connection to your device until you explicitly close() it or call turnOff(). This will let you issue subsequent commands like .startTitle() or .sendKeys() without seeing the annoying "A companion app has connected/disconnected" messages all the time.

The API alone cannot register with your device automatically, but it has the same defaults for credentials file location as the CLI, so you can do the initial registration on the CLI and expect the API to work (provided you pass the same configuration).

For more information, including how to specify specific devices on multi-device networks, see the documentation comments in device.js.

How it works

In order to get the credentials, ps4-waker pretends to be another PS4 on your local network, responding to the right broadcasts with the appropriate messages, and simulating the connection handshake that the app makes with a real PS4.

With those in hand, ps4-waker connects to the real PS4 and communicates with the same TCP protocol the app uses to authenticate itself as a connected Device---it will show up as "PS4 Waker" in your device management.

Once registered as a connected Device, it can simply send the correct "wake" packet with the initially-fetched credentials.

Notes

This has been tested on a MacBook Pro running the OSX Yosemite. Using the new TCP connection, we don't need to do any wacky MAC spoofing, so any machine should work. Pull requests are welcome, however, if extra twiddling is needed for smooth operation on Windows or Linux.

The TCP connection API is exposed via require('ps4-waker').Socket, and the PS4 detection as require('ps4-waker').Detector. As noted above, though, for most cases you probably should prefer the Device API via require('ps4-waker').Device. See the sources in the lib directory for more information on these modules.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements to Darryl Sokoloski for his work with the basic wake packet structures, etc. Unlike his implementation, however, it is not necessary to own a Vita or to look at any packets with ps4-waker.

Disclaimer

I take no responsibility for your usage of this code, whatsoever. By using this code, directly or indirectly, you agree that I shall not be held responsible in any way for anything that may happen to you or any of your devices, etc. as a result, directly or indirectly, of your use of this project, in any way whatsoever, etc. etc.