A TV lift that raises the TV from under the lounge floor. This uses an RF fob (similar to a car or garage door remote).
An awning with a remote control that uses RF.
From what I have read, I should be able to use the new feature to learn from the remotes for these, and HA can operate them and detect when they are operated.
Firstly, can someone advise me on what hardware I should use for this?
I have a CC2531 that I used to use as a Zigbee controller, would this work? If not, what ESP32 hardware should I purchase?
Secondly, I couldn’t add the RF integration to Home Assistant because it is a “building block.” How would I add support for my devices?
It all depends on the devices and exactly what you want to be able to do. Some devices use trivial and/or already reverse-engineered protocols. These are much easier to figure out. Others use more sophisticated and/or encrypted protocols, depending on how good a job they did of engineering it can be difficult to impossible to figure out.
Once you figure out the protocol, some are better suited to automation than others.
It also depends on your familiarity with all the terms used in RF and the radios.
When faced with something like this, I always look up the FCC IDs of the devices. That will specify the frequency and sometimes the modulation used. They used to include schematics, but those are generally hidden now.
There are sub-GHz radios like the CC1101
While the chip can be used over a wide frequency range, most boards operate over a relatively narrow range, so you have to know what frequency to get/use.
There are SDR devices that will listen over a wide range that you can use to figure out the appropriate frequency (or just look up the FCC ID and get the information there).
It is always good to search for the particular device you have, since it is possible someone else has already done the hard work of figuring it all out and you can build upon that.
More precisely? RF is generally considered anything between 3 kHz to 300 GHz.
In most cases here CC1101 or separated Tx and RX modules are used for 433MHz.
Something like this probably isn’t a bad entry point to the world of sniffing and automating IR and RF codes. As to whether it will work with your specific devices, that depends on what others have said.