The Harmony software has gone down the drain, the flows for setting up a hub (that broke by itself anyway) are completely broken on both iOS & Android, with some fortune-cookie style Engrish before the setup finishes informing me that things are “unfortunate”.
However, amongst the myriad of existent or more likely non-existent products (Kickstarter is awesome if you need a remote in the 2025 to 2030 period, I guess), I have yet to find a remote that also works with Bluetooth, everyone is going IR/RF. The Shield wants Bluetooth, the PS3 wants Bluetooth, so this seems like a major oversight.
Do you know of any such product that can actually be purchased?
You mentioned harmony already.
Have you used the ir to bluetooth box from logitech to control the ps3? If yes and it is configured, it should be possible to use the ir commands of that box to control it with a different remote which support custom commands. IR is also supported by ESPHome where you can define the needed set of commands and integrate it into Home Assistant.
I have not found anything within some minutes, but perhaps there is a solution with ESPHome and Bluetooth proxy or bluetooth commands.
At github there are multiple projects which are using the PS3 controller to control their projects but it seems not the other way around.
There should be the list of bluetooth commands sent by ps3 remote:
A very diy way would be to buy or use an existing ps3 remote and solder the button matrix to an esp.
But that would be tricky, I think.
The Remote Two is probably the one to go for, although no announced availability for reservations in my country, Romania and hazy availability in “early 2023” mean that it doesn’t solve my problem now
As for the PS3, I can’t have a separate solution, I need one physical, non-phone or touch-based remote that can control the whole media center…the Harmony works very well when it doesn’t decide to go nuts, but when it goes nuts it’s super-frustrating for the whole family.
It looks like at least until the Remote Two actually becomes available, I’m stuck with the Harmony. I like Flirc’s stuff, too, but they’re also IR-only: The Skip 1s - Flirc
I think the only way around this is if someone could build an (at least software) equivalent to the Harmony Hub, perhaps an ESP-based device with an IR blaster and Bluetooth, to which I could point any IR remote on the market. It’s kind of what the Flirc receiver does, but it’s just one receiver on one device and it doesn’t have Bluetooth…
In the meantime, probably the best solution would be to keep the various devices’ individual remotes on hand so that I can at least talk grandma through powering on the TV when Harmony fails while we’re out and she’s babysitting
