I recently moved into a new place and the only place I could mount my TV was over the mantle of my fireplace. Not wanting to end up on r/TVTooHigh, I had to purchase a TV mount that would let me lower the TV while watching. Now is a good time to bring up the the fact that I’m the laziest pos you can find, and the thought of walking up to the TV every time I have to turn it on brought back ww2 memories before the advent of the remote. So, I got motorized stand to automate the process hoping to use the bond rm link to use it with HA. I didn’t want an additional remote apart from my TV remote to lose behind the sofa. Unfortunately, the remote that ships with the mount works at 2.4GHz and not 433Mhz like most other remotes, making the Bond useless. Well, the only option now was to be hacky. Eventually, I was able to manage to set up the automation with some elbow grease.
First, I ordered a spare remote from VIVO (the back of the remote has the model number). There is a quick process to pair the new remote with mount. Once paired, I programmed the the top and bottom positions for the mount to memory buttons 1 and 2.
Then proceeded to open up the remote and as you can see the PCB is pretty simple with the buttons lining up the contacts. The most important contacts are those marked K1and k8 which are mapped to our memory buttons 1 & 2. I had a few optocoupler relays lying around that I soldered across the center tab and one of the side tabs for each of those buttons.
Was pleasantly surprised to find that the remote ran on the same voltage as the MCU so I did not need to hook up a different power supply for it. Just the Vdd and Gnd from the MCU was enough.
Integrating the ESP to ESPhome integration on HA was a breeze. Just followed the instructions for a couple of switches according to the documentation. The snippet :
I have an LG TV and with the webOS integration, I track when my TV is on or off. When the TV is turned on, an automation activates the switch for ESPhome to lower the mount along with a few other automations like closing the blinds and lowering the lights depending on the time of the day. Similarly, when the TV is turned off the mount returns to its home position. Demo video here
Great write up. I followed you over here from Reddit. You and another Redditer inspired me to do this myself last week. I used a Tuya-compatible 4-switch relay instead of the ESP route, but it’s the same idea. Biggest challenge for me was figuring out which wire to solder to which post on the appropriate button. Finally got it with a lot of trial and error. I left the remote’s board in the remote housing, so it’s powered from the remotes two AAA batteries. The relay is wired to power. I put the pieces in a cardboard box and stashed it in my kitchen cabinet where we charge all our devices. I added it to my “watch TV downstairs” HA automation, so the TV lowers as the lights go out and the TV and AppleTV power on. SO COOL. Grateful to you and the other guy for pointing me in the right direction!
In theory you shouldn’t need the optocoupler relay if the ESP and the remote are sharing the same power.
You can just use the ESP pins directly if one of the pads on each remote button shares a common ground. From what I can tell based on your pictures, this is indeed the case - the ground pad where you’re connecting power at the bottom has a trace which goes to each button.
You can drastically reduce the wiring and footprint by connecting as follows:
Remote > ESP:
DC3v > ESP 3v3 (no changes to your current wiring)
GND at bottom of remote & common ground points on your buttons > ESP GND (3 wires* to 1 ESP pin if your board doesn’t have 3 Grounds)
Down button positive (K1) > ESP D3
Up button positive (K8) > ESP D4
*You might not even need the wires from the button grounds to the ESP, only the bottom ground might be enough. Check with a multimeter whether there’s continuity between GND and the button grounds when the button isn’t pressed. If so, you’ll only need 1 ground wire (the bottom one) going to the ESP.
Looks like you’re working on integrating your motorized TV mount with Home Assistant, and you’re already close with your wiring setup. One tip to consider: if the ESP and remote are sharing power, you might be able to streamline things a bit more by skipping the optocoupler relay. Since it seems like your remote’s buttons share a common ground, connecting directly to the ESP pins could simplify your wiring.
If you’re aiming to clean up your desk setup while you’re at it, it could be worth checking out the best dual monitor arms to keep your workspace organized and cable-free. A tidy desk can make it easier to focus on your projects like this one.
Hi, looking for you help on the settings you did for the Vivo remote.
In the MHCOZY what ports did you use? NC, COM, NO?
Also, how do you connect the MHCOZY to Alexa?
