I’m sure this comes up quite often. I’m pondering through the mechanics of how to control an electric wall heater that has an IR remote.
The trouble is, it does not have buttons for ON and OFF and it does not have buttons for HIGHER or LOWER, but instead a single ON/OFF button and a single “Function” button that cycles through OFF, FAN, LOW, HIGH as well as a single button for the flame effect, OFF, LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH, FULL
So while I can work out how to send a sequence of RF codes to this, I can’t know what state it’s in before I do. I could of course hide the existing remote somewhere nobody can use it and rely on the automation and dashboard controls, but I want to exhaust other options first and retain manual control of the fire.
My first thought was to force the fire into a known state by power cycling it with a SOnOff, wait 1 seconds then blast it with a sequence of codes to put it in the state I want. Say ON, HIGH, FULL.
While this seems fine, when the temp gets closer to target I’d like to switch it down to LOW. Now if I assume it’s still in HIGH i just send the “Function” code three times, it will OFF, FAN, LOW. However if for some reason I (or a guest) has decided they don’t want the heater on and has turned it off with the remote that sequence would actually turn it onto HIGH.
So this means that every time I want to change it’s state I need to power cycle it, then send the full sequence of codes. While this would work it would be rather irritating especially as the fire “BEEEPS!” loudly every time it receives an IR signal. To got from power on to HIGH and FULL would require 8 codes and 8 beeps and the flame effect would of course blink off and come back on again.
So maybe a halfway house. I will allow the automatics to control the heater, but only if it’s already powered on and it will assume that (a) it’s initially in the heater OFF status and that nobody interferes with it, so the state it records is “source of truth” while it’s on. So it only sends the “Function” IR signal. if I want it to go off I can use a dashboard to disable it.
The problem is, I don’t see this working. The fire will normally be fully OFF, but powered on at the wall plug so the IR remote won’t work unless you press the power button first. So it would require, when I want to hit the sofa for an evening that I remember to switch it on within a few seconds of closing the doors.
Also in the event that either door opens and remains open the fire will be powered off via IR by the automatics.
What is sounding like a more appealing option is to not bother trying to automate R2D2 here and buy a cheap fan or convection heater that works as soon as you power it on, switch it with a SOnOff.
I will have a similar issue with my portable AirCon unit come summer, but in that case it doesn’t really switch state much and I normally just turn it on and leave it alone, so SOnOff and a single IR code to power it on should work. Maybe a quick spam of Temp DOWN to ensure it’s not stuck somewhere silly like 26C.
I’m also debating whether to use a BroadLink Mini or go DIY and use an ESP8266 and an IR LED with a lab/bench set up to get the codes on an Arduino breadboard style.
I suppose I don’t really have a question, but maybe, just maybe someone out there has thought of something I didn’t. It has happened many times before, the “Oh… aahhh… yes! Of course” moments.