Yeah, the interface you have is really nice, it would be pretty hard to replicate that on the esp32, you’d probably have to lose the animations. If you did switch you’re talking about months of battery time vs hours but it’s a trade off.
That is true, but I’d rather pop the remote back in the charging dock than lose the animations 
I’ll do some tests with the new setup, it should last approx. 8-10 hours with a 2500mah battery.
1 Like
Incredible work!
I been looking decent remote for long time and you nailed it! Looking forward to instructions.
This looks great!! Cant wait to see where this goes.
Very impressive work! It might be possible to save power by disabling graphics when the screen is off.
/usr/bin/tvservice -o ( -p to re-enable)
Disabling the leds of you don’t use them.
Profiling of the apps would probably tell you what consumes power. The pi should be able to run at 35mA approx.
If you paste a link to your code, buildroot defconfig, app source, etc the community can probably help you with that 
Awesome work!
Where do you do the aluminum machining?
I would like to see it with an oled display, if the current one isn’t already. That would also save a lot of power, as I imagine the screen using most of the power, when on.
Thank you!
@petersv OLED is a good idea. Did a quick search and found a panel that could work:
http://www.panelook.com/AMS353FD09-0_Samsung_3.5_OLED_overview_11920.html
It comes without a touch panel, but maybe it could be ordered that way. I’ll try to contact some suppliers. If it is possible, then have to test and try to write a driver for it.
I use DPI connection from the display to the Raspberry, so I use the tvservice command to turn of the HDMI circuitry to save power. Also the act LED is off too
I did the aluminium CNC through 3Dhubs. It was quite fast, quite expensive but quite good quality.
I’ll publish code and everything, just cleaning some stuff up
4 Likes
This is a very beautiful project. I would be very interested in making one myself. I once made one with an ESP8266 and a ITEAD touch screen. It was functional, but I did not had any resources to make a beautiful cover for it. also the GUI wasn’t that beautiful at all.
Running it from a rPi Zero, is very clever. I am even supprised you can last that long on a battery. If you ever would like to share the designs, I will absolutely make wone! Good job!
I think it’s hysterical that you say you’re not a developer… You may not get paid as one in your full time job, but give yourself props, dude. You are a dev now 
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@petersv just an update on the OLED screen. I’ve reached out to a supplier and asked if it’s possible to get that screen with capacitive touch. It is possible, but a custom panel needs to be made and the cost for the tooling is over $800, and the minimum order is 1000 pieces
I’ll keep an eye on OLED screens, but as it looks right now, it’s not an option. If you guys know of a display that would fit, let me know!
Congratulations, the result is awesome!!
Do you create the UI based on HA configuration or is it hard-coded?
Thanks!
Right now I have a configuration file where I enter the entities I want in the remote. I’ve started working on a setup flow, so when I release the software it would be automatic. I am planning to use the new areas feature introduced in the recent release and use it to define the rooms/areas and of course automatically distribute the entities.
A little update. First steps of the setup flow
It is going to work like this:
- connect to wifi
- connect to HA
- select entities
9 Likes
Awesome work!
I’m currently taking my first steps with pyside2 and QT/QML myself. Would it be possible to see the source code to get an idea of how so sophisticated frontends work ?
Hi
That is awesome work!
I would be very interrested in building one for my self.
I have access to cheap materials, 3 axed CNC machine, 3d printer. so hopefully i can do it a bit cheaper
Best regards
Looks awesome, but wouldnt 3d printing the entire thing instead of CNC, and manufacturing only the PCB in china via for example PCBway and then just soldering on the parts cut down on the costs to basically just the screen price, the RPI, and a few cheap components from aliexpress?
I mean i wouldnt mind if it were like 5mm thicker because of the above changes if it were 20% of the price.
Thanks!
I wanted to create something that is really close to a professional product. I went from having a 320x240 pixel screen and the whole thing being 15mm to the current version in the second iteration. Makes a really big difference in my opinion.
Of course you can 3D print the whole thing and solder the components yourself. I’m just not really good at soldering 49 pin FCP connectors 
I think it would be awesome to go with wireless charging and get rid of a docking station! Just a thought.
Reminds me a bit of the BeoRemote One. The screen at the top and the CNC machined case.
Looks great!!
@Jon_Snow I thought about it and it’s super easy to do, just don’t know how to deal with the heat. I wouldn’t put the coil over the battery, but then I have to put it over the raspberry. The coil gets quite hot when charging. Do you have any suggestions?
@sargent-penguin Thank you! I like the fact that it reminds you the beoremote. I have a pure aluminium version I made. That’s closer than the black one
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@marton - Sorry I don’t have a solution or suggestion. I know that in new cell phones they stack the coil on the battery but not sure exactly how it works. Just a thought I had.
What about using an esp chip to load a webpage (maybe a custom Lovelace view) to offload the work from the device and put it on the host of HA? Maybe get better battery? Snappier device?