Hi recently i bought an IR Controller Broad link mini 3 that makes smart some of my dumb devices on my home
I have two questions:
First on my dumb TV that i have only amazon fire tv 4k(powered by Adaptor) if is possible to monitor the current state because if i manually turn off the tv the state of home assistant remains turned ON
Second the same on my air condition that is only managed with IR dont have WIfi
Is the TV connected to the network?
I can ping or use an API on my Philips TV.
Its a Non Smart TV.
Well… My TV is not smart either but it has an Ethernet port.
In that case I believe you need to “read” LED status if that is possible.
If the TV has a red LED when in standby then you can mount a photoresistor and read if it’s turned on or off.
Or if there is any Leads on the back or inside that you can see, that would probably look better.
Or do you have a USB connector available on the TV?
Usually they are off when the TV is off, so use that to either power your sensor or use it as input to show state.
My tv has 1 usb 2 hdmi and digital audio , also has a read led that when is turned off is red
There you go!
Just use the USB then.
That is probably the easiest.
Is there any extra device to put on that port?
I use a power monitoring plug to determine if my ‘dumb’ TV and other devices are on/off. Basically if greater than a certain number of Watts the device is on. Otherwise its considered off. Works well for my use case.
I do the same as this too and works great. ESPHome running on TUYA plugs
Yeah thats is really good but i use power strip, is there any device that can monitor the power watts from usb?
that device must communicate with the home assistant so maybe its expensive right?
Get a esp8266 (generally very cheap) and install esphome on it.
It will integrate seamlessly in home assistant.
As I said earlier, you could either power the esp with the USB port and if the entity is unavailable then the TV is off.
Or you power the esp from another USB and use the TV USB to show if the TV is on.
Just strip the USB cable from the TV and add a 470 ohm resistor on the red wire then put the resistors other leg on a pin of the esp.
This will give pin a high reading when the TV is on.
Use the binary sensor https://esphome.io/components/binary_sensor/gpio.html to read if the TV is on or off.
I found this on alliexpress and on local stores i found that
i suppose to be compatible to begin the tests
Not sure about any of those actually.
You know the store better than me, is this a reputable store to buy from?
https://www.skroutz.gr/c/146/diafora-mikrohlektronika.html?keyphrase=esp8266
In that case one of the types you see at the top, the first or second.
What I mean by that is a chip with board, USB connector and pins (or where you can easily solder pins to).
Not as the third and fourth which is just to chip and nothing else.
Nodemcu as the first one is a very widely used board.
Another very widely used is the WeMos D1.
But around 10 euro is a common price in Europe.
Thank you very much for help.
Ill buy one of this and one of this especially the first one is NodeMcu v3 i supose to intergrate easilly with esphome and home assistant!
I think with the Aircondition there is nothing to do ?
the electric connection is in the wall so i cant monitor the electricity and there is no on off led , only the temperature i can see
Sure.
Should work. I just tried a similar setup with a 150 ohm resistor and that worked too.
About the aircondirion. Perhaps monitor sound? or airflow?
Thank you again!
I make an extra research , ill buy an ESP8266 CP2102 NodeMcu 3v and 5v compatible for my tv that its cost only 2 euros:P and here in greece costs 7e+2e Sniping
ill connect directly to my tv and ill follow your first solution with the entity when is unavailable.
for air condition followed your suggestions and talked with my friend (electrician) and said that at most AC inside has outputs on its boards can so it can power on the esp direct with cable , to avoid extra cables and programming:P
Also ill buy a third esp with resistors , and humidity sensors to “play” and learn more about that think that will always on!
Keep in mind the pins are not 5 volt.
Not in or out. Only the vcc can deliver 5 volt out, but you can’t connect that to an input pin without a resistor.
But don’t you have to import fees? I thought that was in all of EU. Here in Sweden it’s about 8-9 euro in just import fees if we buy from outside EU…
About the air condition, you can also do as I have done with my coffee maker.
Put a USB charger in parallel after the switch.
Or you could also be in series on one cable. But that has it’s downside…
Keep in mind when you use the option one it takes a few seconds to get wifi connection, and you are “wasting” a good board that has lots of pins that can be useful.
But it’s a good idea to buy an extra to learn what they can do.
In Greece the import fees from outside the EU starts from 22.5 euro and above when the package more than 22.5 then you pay extra ~23 euro import fee!
The package comes from aliexpress (china) so its difficult to reach that limit:P