I had several nagging reasons to create a single universal remote that was controllable from an app on our phones:
- I was looking for a cool Home Assistant project, plus a project to use up some of the extra ESP8266’s I had
- We had way too many IR remotes in our living room
- We only ever pressed one or two button per remotes
- Setting up for the evening using said remotes, was a juggle
- Remotes were always stashed high and far from kids, or lost in couch cushions
- Related to above, many of the batteries in the remotes are dangerous to small kids if somehow broken/opened
- We always had our phones on us, but remotes were always out of reach or forgotten, always after getting comfy

Here’s what I did to build a custom universal remote that replaced all my IR remotes including my AppleTV touch remote:
Requirements
- HomeAssistant setup & running (mines on a rpi3b)
- HomeAssistant mobile App
- ESP8266 (or ESP32) w/ micro usb cable
- IR LED and IR Receiver
- NPN transistor (BC337)
- Jumper cables, or wire + soldering stuff
- Heat shrink
- Optionally for installation: long micro-usb to usb A cable, 3d printed case, Velcro to stick case to wall
Optional: Setup Apple TV to use IR
Not totally sure what interface the Apple Remote uses, but if looking to Replace Apple TV: you can map the Apple TV to listen to some arbitrary button presses from any unused remote following this doc.
Build an IR Receiver to Capture Codes
First step is to capture all the IR codes. I set up a receiver as follows:

The nice part about this layout for the IR receiver I had is I was able to just slip it into a breadboard, no wiring:

In the ESPHome section of Home Assistant:
- Click the big “+” add button in bottom
- Fill out the wizard
- Once created, edit the module and append to the bottom of the config:
remote_receiver:
#D5
pin:
number: GPIO14
inverted: True
mode: INPUT_PULLUP
dump: raw
idle: 25ms
For reference, mine in full looks like:
esphome:
name: ir_receiver
platform: ESP8266
board: nodemcuv2
wifi:
ssid: !secret wifi_name
password: !secret wifi_pass
ap:
ssid: "Ir Receiver Fallback Hotspot"
password: !secret irfallback
captive_portal:
logger:
api:
password: !secret ota_pass
ota:
password: !secret ota_pass
remote_receiver:
#D5
pin:
number: GPIO14
inverted: True
mode: INPUT_PULLUP
dump: raw
idle: 25ms
Then validate, and upload through the USB port if this is the first chunk of code being sent, after that, no need to be plugged in and Over The Air works fine. Home Assistants Notification panel should alert of a new device detected, and you can add in the device and the entity.
Once uploaded, the logs should continue to show in the modal window. Try pointing an IR remote at it and smashing some buttons. If it yells a bunch of crazy number strings at you: it’s working!
There’s some important notes while looking to record a single button:
- if the “Received Raw” starts with a negative number, you pin may not be inverted and may need to be. IR signals are a positive number (length of high value), followed by a negative number (length of low value).
- A single press resulted for me in 3 lines. I needed to manually merge the first two and ignore the third. Why? I have no idea. For example, here’s the power button for my TV:
[20:13:30][D][remote.raw:028]: Received Raw: 8992, -4452, 619, -541, 598, -1639, 621, -1663, 598, -540, 598, -540, 597, -541, 598, -541, 597, -1641, 620, -1640, 620, -541, 596, -1640, 621, -541, 597, -541, 597, -541, 598, -540, 598, -541, 597, -1639, 621, -1640, 620, -1640, 620,
[20:13:30][D][remote.raw:041]: -1641, 620, -541, 597, -541, 598, -540, 598, -540, 598, -540, 598, -540, 598, -541, 597, -541, 597, -1640, 620, -1640, 621, -1641, 619, -1640, 621
[20:13:30][D][remote.raw:041]: Received Raw: 8993, -2205, 621
I combine the first and second lines, and remove the last line. The need to remove the third comes from line 2 ending in a positive, and line 3 starting in a positive, IR patterns must be positive negative. I don’t know why that third line is there, but removing it everything still worked in the end. From the above, my IR signal for the TV power button ended up being:
8992, -4452, 619, -541, 598, -1639, 621, -1663, 598, -540, 598, -540, 597, -541, 598, -541, 597, -1641, 620, -1640, 620, -541, 596, -1640, 621, -541, 597, -541, 597, -541, 598, -540, 598, -541, 597, -1639, 621, -1640, 620, -1640, 620, -1641, 620, -541, 597, -541, 598, -540, 598, -540, 598, -540, 598, -540, 598, -541, 597, -541, 597, -1640, 620, -1640, 621, -1641, 619, -1640, 621
Creating the IR Blaster
With the codes captured, next step is to build a transmitter. I think it’s best to use a dedicated board for sending, instead of adding the blaster to the receiver. I originally tried to setup just one board that would both receive and sent the codes, but found the boards lacked the brains to push and get at the same time successfully, which made debugging nearly impossible. I found it far easier to dedicate one device to just receiving and another to sending.
I read that ESP8266’s weren’t that great at sending the blasts and ESP32’s were a better choice due to some improved chips onboard, however I had success with ESP8266.
I wired the blaster like so:


The just like before, created a new ESPHome entry with the following appended to the config, adding the in the buttons and their codes:
remote_transmitter:
# D2
pin:
number: GPIO4
carrier_duty_percent: 50%
switch:
- platform: template
id: tv_power_btn
name: TV Power Button
turn_on_action:
- remote_transmitter.transmit_raw:
carrier_frequency: 38kHz
code: [8995, -4449, 623......-1638, 622, -1639, 622]
- platform: template
name: TV Up Button
id: tv_up_button
turn_on_action:
- remote_transmitter.transmit_raw:
carrier_frequency: 38kHz
code: [8995, -4447, 625......-1637, 623, -1637, 624]
- platform: template
name: TV Left Button
id: tv_left_button
turn_on_action:
- remote_transmitter.transmit_raw:
carrier_frequency: 38kHz
code: [8937, -4506, 566......-1671, 590, -1693, 567]
...ect
LoveLace Remote Interface
I saw some articles about using a tiles plugin for remote, but I reckoned I could get away using Button cards in a Vertical and Horizontal cards to create a table for button cards. To do this, I:
- Created a vertical group for the remote
- Created a horizontal group for a row of buttons
- Created more adjacent horizontal groups for the following rows
- I created the buttons by selecting a Button Card
- selecting the entity
- Getting a cool icon from materialdesignicons.com
- Setting “show name” to off
- Setting Icon Height to
50
Here’s a peak at my setup in it’s .yaml
form:
type: vertical-stack
cards:
- type: horizontal-stack
cards:
- type: button
tap_action:
action: toggle
entity: switch.insignia_tv_power_button
name: TV
icon: 'mdi:power-standby'
icon_height: 50px
show_name: false
- type: button
tap_action:
action: toggle
entity: switch.tv_nothing_button
show_name: false
show_icon: false
- type: button
...
- type: horizontal-stack
cards:
- type: button
...
Which I laid out to look like:

An important one here is the tv_nothing_button
, it is what is says, it’s a button that just like all the others is registered on the esphome setup, however, it sends a invalid value, triggering nothing, but allows the UI to house proper spacing and a consistent look.
Update: looks like the grid card was just released in 0.118 to make this even easier!
Installation Placement
All our devices and lights to control with IR are on a single wall, so mounting the on the opposite wall, higher up towards the roof above our curtains gave the blaster direct line of sight to all devices, and kept it out of the way.
Before mounting I tested all functionality, walking around with the ESP8266 connected to a battery pack to find just the right spot, and quicker debugging.
Case
Most of the designs for esp8266 cases on thingiverse.com were too small or oriented the wrong way for this single LED wall mount use. So I designed a custom case with shapr3d.com. I designed a case for both small and large styles of ESP8266 as I had both, and also did it in a “dead bug” style with lots of room for the bulky dupont connections.
The case can be downloaded here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4739748


Everything Together
Considering for each button press, the flow data is Home Assistant App on Phone > Wifi > Home Assistant > Wifi > ESP8266 blaster > Target Device, it actually works really fast. No noticeable latency or delays connecting. Additionally, I just used the normal HA ESPHome API, not MQTT. Every time I open the app, the module is already connected and ready to press a button (no load or unavailability).
Our families use case for the buttons we needed, is simple and straight forward, so this solution of just firing up the Home Assistant App on our phones was the perfect fit.
Automation & Shortcuts
With all the button entities added into Home Assistant, scripts and automations can be made with ease. For example, I created a “boom button” script that toggles all the power buttons.
Additionally, the Shortcuts app on iOS with the Home Assistant app allows you to turn entities on and off, or run scripts. The title of these shortcuts are pre-wired into Siri, so “Turn TV On” voice commands can be wired up in just a few minutes. More about this here.
I did not store the state (“on/off”) of a button in Home Assistant. Though the button entity can, doing so raised risk of state being incorrect if any of the devices are toggled manually or via the real remotes. I opted it was best to treat the buttons just like an IR remote that are unaware of a device being on or off. This limited automation (eg: turn on if not on), however I’m okay with that.
Thank you so much for the writeup, was painless to follow and got me up and running in no time. did you ever get around to uploading the stl for the case?
Happy to hear! Ah, thank you I completely forgot. Here’s the files: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4739748
Hi – great tutorial, beautifully written – know it’s a skill to balance enough detail with too much detail!
Just a bit stuck at the final hurdle, created a transmitter as you’ve described, all validates fine and can see it running in the ESPHome log, just can’t see anything in the Home Assistant developer tools/lovelace button card that matches my template name.
Am I missing something silly here? ie do i need to add anything to the Home Assistant configuration.yaml or something? Tried restarting server also.
switch:
– platform: template
id: tv_mount_open
name: TV Mount Open
turn_on_action:
– remote_transmitter.transmit_raw:
carrier_frequency: 38kHz
code: [20642, -21005, 15500]
– platform: template
id: tv_mount_close
name: TV Mount Close
turn_on_action:
– remote_transmitter.transmit_raw:
carrier_frequency: 38kHz
code: [20669, -10471, 5169, -10499, 5172]
Thanks!
After creating the ESPHome node, did you see a Home Assistant notification detecting the new Integration and follow the wizard to add it in? There should be a ESPHome section in the `/config/integrations` page with your modules once they’ve been integrated into Home Assistant- might try poking around there.
Spot on – apologies obviously responded as you were also!
Ok, ignore above – apart from my compliments regarding your tutorial! Figured it out – just needed to go into Home Assistant > Integrations and click configure on the component that appeared. Might be worth adding to the tutorial for any other numbskulls out there like me…!
My final hurdle – I have a TV Mount that’s motorised and I’ve got the command for it to open working perfectly, but the command for close is strange:
[14:44:42][D][remote.raw:041]: Received Raw: 20644, -21005, 15500
[14:44:42][D][remote.raw:041]: Received Raw: 20651, -20997, 15496
I can’t just paste the first couple of rows as it complains that it needs to alternate positive and negative numbers. Likewise one row doesn’t work – any ideas how to combine these two rows so it’ll work??
Hm, it’s strange that the CLOSE code you just posted shares the same signal as the OPEN one (`20644, -21005, 15500`). Also noting that of those two codes last commented, the number are very very close, the biggest diff is only off by 8, so I think the CLOSE pasted above is basically the same signal, it just sent twice. I’m not sure why these are basically the same as the OPEN signal. It’s strange.
Got this working randomly – just repeated a few times and eventually got a 5 set code which works perfectly. Very strange, but now it’s saved it works perfectly…
Now looking at automating my garage door keys also with this!
PS have an RF transmitter for my oil tank level: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Apollo-Heating-Energy-Monitor-Watchman/dp/B0087FDCZU/ref=pd_lpo_60_t_2/257-7386215-0857864?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0087FDCZU&pd_rd_r=07edd954-3b5d-48e9-ab84-473efa434531&pd_rd_w=G5yVy&pd_rd_wg=m6xvT&pf_rd_p=da0677f5-a47b-4543-8b54-10be576b8f26&pf_rd_r=X0VWA6GCSYHX4XCK3YTS&psc=1&refRID=X0VWA6GCSYHX4XCK3YTS)
Would I need to change any components for this to work or is it just a simple as changing the code in ESPHome to use RF?
Great tutorial again – been really useful!