I know there have been posts in the past about TV recommendations for HA, but I’m hoping someone might be able to recommend one where I can have a single button (that through HA or anything else) will:
Turn the TV on, if it is currently off. (A second press to turn off would be ideal).
Set the input to broadcast digital TV, if it isn’t already.
Set the channel to X, if it isn’t already.
The first requirement - reliably turn the TV on - seems to be a bit of a sticking point. This is for my parents who are struggling to operate the “smart” features of their TV. A single button to get the channel they most watch would solve a lot of frustration, while still allowing navigation of the TV by others (i.e. leaving it in a different state).
Just get a Zigbee remote and some kind of IR transmitter like broadlink or a ESP DIY module.
Then just create the automation for this.
Oh… you need something that could read the state of the TV also.
In my son’s room I used the USB port of the TV and just measured the voltage to know if it’s on or off.
That can easily be done with the ESP DIY module but requires soldering.
Does the TV support any integration? You might be able to turn on and off and select input from the integration. If you can just set up an automation with a Zigbee button or something similar.
I find LG WebOS TVs to be good.
There is no feedback on the apps though, but if it is standard TV stuff, like turn on/off, volume control and switch to a TV channel (analog/digital/satellite) then it is great.
There are feedback on all these standard TV things.
The TV itself can be woken by Wake on LAN and the TV channels can be set to be skipped and moved around, so they come up in an order that makes sense.
A simpler solution might be a big button remote instead.
tbh, being in a similar situation, I would not use HA unless you are in the same house to maintain it (or you are remotely connected), it just adds complexity and requires to be ‘on’ all the time. My recommendation would be a programmable remote control, they can ‘record’ or program a series of actions.
EDIT: @WallyR just updated his post…
Thank you all for the replies. I was so focused on being able to get the current state of the TV to then decide what the next action should be, I didn’t really thinking about using IR. I see there are IR codes for Samsung TVs such as specifically power on, etc, that should do it. I just need to figure out how to use those codes with ESPHome or similar.
