Looking for universal IR remote (Logitech Harmony alternative)

Hardware
1

Hi, I am looking for IR remote “combinator”. It should be one remote which can replace multiple others but the main control should be stil physical remote. I know of devices such as Broadlink but there the input is via phone application which translates to IR/RF/WiFi. I am looking for device which can accept inputs from IR/RF remote and remoap them to IR.
The idea is to be similar to Logitech Harmony but smarter :slight_smile: Instead of switching the devices explicitly it should be possible to map the buttons of the “master remote” to different devices so by giving the command to the base station it should re-transmit to the particular device.
Ideally the base station should be integrated with HA so I can give commands over the network as well.

I am sure it can be implemented with ESP32 and few IR receiver/transmitters + cheap universal IR remote. Has anybody worked on such device or do you know of such a project?
Thanks.

2

http://www.sofabaton.com/

Have a look at these. No, not custom build but an alternative though not cheap at all.

3

Thanks for the suggestions. I have seen those and the main problems are:

  • Some are lacking number pads and the main use of the “master remote” will be TV operations
  • There is still a need to manually switch between remotes. I am afraid the wife acceptance factor will be low :slight_smile:
  • The price is really high for the Yio

Generally the point is to make the experience as seamless for the wife and kid but make it possible to slowly introduce advanced features.

4
5

I got inspired by this article and bought broken broadlink 4 mini and ESP32. A diode array in nice housing was the main thing I was missing for DYI solution. At least the mini 3 in the article has input and output IR diodes so it should be relatively simple program to write converting the signals from one remote controller to another and achieve the ultimate remote control on the cheap :slight_smile:

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