I’m poking around with HA and my new Broadlink RM Pro, and I was wondering if anyone uses it as an RF gateway into HA; that is, using an RF remote as a general-purpose automation remote? I’ve replaced all my old RF switches with Z-wave switches or dimmers, so I have a couple of RF remotes I’d like to be able to use as a cheap/throwaway alternative to minimotes.
From what I’m reading, the RF receiver range on the Broadlink is pretty small, so unless there is an antenna mod available I imagine it would be unreliable at best. I’m actually unable to read RF signals from the broadlink into HA at all (but can using the e-Control app), so it may be a dead end regardless.
So would my best option be to go with RF receiver/transmitter modules wired directly to my pi’s GPIO (or a nodeMCU MQTT gateway)?
The communication doesn’t really go that way, you can save the received codes and export them to HA, such that HA can send the commands IR/RF to the broadlink for output to the devices to switch on/off. You can’t get the broadlink to send HA any codes. So the best option for using the remotes is to get the RF hardware (£3-£5) and NODEMCU/PI/WEMOS D1 Mini etc and use the MQTT gateway. As you say you could go the PI route (that’s what I’ve done) and use pilight or RFLink to receive the remotes codes.
