[ESP8266] Cheap IR remote

[ThinkPad]

I made my IR devices (like 5.1 receiver, TV) controllable over wifi, by using an ESP8266 (Wemos D1 Mini) and a IR Transmitter. The software is ESPEasy (really great to get quickly going with an ESP8266, also supports MQTT and such).

Explanation posted on ESPEasy forum but quoted here for backup purposes:

I got the _P106_IRTX.ino plugin working! It works really good!

How to do it:

• Download ESPEasy source (from .zip or from GitHub)
• Download the plugin and place it in the same folder as ‘ESPEasy.ino’ and the other *.ino files
• Download the IRremoteESP8266.h and also put in same folder as above
• Compile & upload to your device (i used a Wemos D1 Mini board)
• Then under ‘Devices’ in ESPEasy, select ‘Infrared Transmit’ and choose the GPIO pin that you have the IR Transmitter connected to. For Wemos D1 Mini i connected the transmitter to pin ‘D1’, which is GPIO5 in ESPEasy.

You should then be able to send commands by calling the ESP url like this: http://192.168.4.138/control?cmd=IRSEND,NEC,4bb620df,32 (this command turns my Onkyo 5.1 receiver on)

Finding out the codes (and protocol and bits) that your remote uses is quite easy. I used a separate Arduino Nano which i loaded a sample sketch of ‘IRrecvDumpV2’ on.
As a transmitter i use two IR leds, a 2N2222 transistor and a 470 Ohm resistor. The transistor is driven from the GPIO and gives the IR leds 5V, to create a powerful transmitter. The ready to use IR transmitter boards from China are very weak, because they draw their power from the GPIO.

I haven’t added it to the GUI of my HASS setup yet, i’m still thinking about how it should look with buttons and such.

[PuckStar]

Good idea to share it here!

BTW Can I just take an old remote and strip the IR led from that and solder it on the D1 mini board?

[ThinkPad]

I think you also need at least a resistor to prevent damage to the LED.

[robbiet480 (Robbie Trencheny)]

I just saw this project a few days ago. I plan to implement it for a different AC unit and build a HASS MQTT Climate platform to go along with it. Similar to yours, but uses MQTT and tracks state of the AC unit.

[PhyberApex]

@ThinkPad

As a transmitter i use two IR leds, a 2N2222 transistor and a 470 Ohm resistor.

Would you mind sharing the schematics for this? I am terrible at these kind of things and I have built something like this myself but it’s just not strong enough. Even though my transmitter draws it’s power from the 3.3V of my ESP8266 LUA board.

Or do you know how else I could amp up the signal.

Thanks!

[ThinkPad]

It was a basic schematic i found on the internet, just search for ‘IR Transmister 2N2222’ and you will find some.
Schematic like this will work. I didn’t use the 10K resistor, and the 330 Ohm is a 470 Ohm resistor in my case, as i don’t use 3.3V but 5V. You can calculate the resistor value if you know the specs of your IR leds. I got my LED from an old remote and just used the specs from a similar LED i found online.

[PhyberApex]

Thanks a ton! How much range did you get out of your remote?

Cheers

[ThinkPad]

It’s about 2 - 2.5 meters now i guess.
I also have a Logitech Harmony universal remote (just a standalone remote, not connected with a hub or something) and the range of it is much better. So still some room for improvement with my own hardware

[CCOSTAN]

I love this. I was researching something like this to control IR led strips and deploy throughout the house pretty cheaply. At least that was my initial thought.

[masterkenobi (Ben)]

Did you manage to make it work?

[bachoo786]

Thanks for this @ThinkPad. I am a complete NOOB and wanted to know how have you connected your whole set up to raspberry pi.

Also how have you linked this to Home Assistant ?

Hope you can guide me.

Many thanks.

[derrick1985]

hi @ThinkPad

Is there any resource that already has the IR codes for various devices? The reason I ask is, I have an esp8266 and IR LED’s, but no IR receiver.

[bachoo786]

Hi

Could you please share your project? I wanted to know how I could transmit my IR codes from my IR light switch remote to HASS via mqtt?

Can you please help ?

Thanks.

[robbiet480 (Robbie Trencheny)]

Sorry just saw this. I used that library to build a new one.

[Mas_Salim]

Hi…
I’m Salim, newbie. As ThinkPad note about P106IRTX.ino plugin and how to do it.
Please enlightenment me about step compile. how to do further? does it work with Arduino IDE or other tools.

thank you
Salim

[Geo (George)]

Thank you for the guide @ThinkPad, it works just fine !

I’m thinking how to integrate this to HA, should I use just the example: http://192.168.4.138/control?cmd=IRSEND,NEC,4bb620df,32 and pass it as a shell command

or

get MQTT to do the commands somehow ?

thank you

[Zeric]

MQTT can also be used which is the way I prefered to handle anything in HA talking to ESP Easy devices. More recent versions of Esp Easy already have the IR plug-in included and don’t require all the steps in the original post.

Here is a snippet of my HA config file to show how to talk to an ir transmitter in Esp Easy:

• platform: mqtt
  name: “Television Master”
  command_topic: “irdevice/cmd”
  payload_on: “irsend,nec,20DF23DC,32”
  payload_off: “irsend,nec,20DFA35C,32”

“irdevice” is the device “Name:” in esp easy devices list.

[bbrendon]

How did you get the IR commands for your fans/devices?

EDIT: I think a better question might be. What components and hardware did you use for IRrecvDumpV2? Is there a diagram somewhere?

[bbrendon]

I found this.

probonopd/arduino-infrared-pronto

It links to a database
http://irdb.tk/

[seffyroff]

Made an account so I could reply to this message with thanks - this was exactly the info I was looking for to use MQTT wiht my IR Transmitter on ESP Easy, @Zeric Thankyou so much!

How did you figure this out? I couldn’t find much in the ESP Easy docs.