David Sword

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

1. HomeAssistant setup & running (mines on a rpi3b)
2. HomeAssistant mobile App
3. ESP8266 (or ESP32) w/ micro usb cable
4. IR LED and IR Receiver
5. NPN transistor (BC337)
6. Jumper cables, or wire + soldering stuff
7. Heat shrink
8. 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:

1. Click the big “+” add button in bottom
2. Fill out the wizard
3. 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

Continue reading Create Custom IR remote w/ Home Assistant & ESPHome

I built a Slack status light because it looked awesome and simple, and at that time I knew nothing about DIY electronics. As I learned more, I outlined how to build a cheaper one on a Raspberry Pi. Then my friend then informed me that you can do it even cheaper with an ESP32 NodeMCU board. He was right. Here’s how I built a IoT busy light for around $5.

For this example, I opted for the older ESP8266 ESP12-E NodeMCU board, it is only $2.65 + 1.73 shipping and has everything needed. Pair that with a cheap RGB shared cathode LED $0.50-$2.00, and a few cents for resistors, for a grand total of around $5* in parts.

I won’t go into the details on the boards, but if unfamiliar it, the tl;dr is you write some C/Lua code using the Ardunio IDE, include WIFI for ESP8266 and Web Server libraries (here’s hello world example code and a great setup video) and add some handlers to toggle the GPIO pins on certain requests, then flash that code onto the board over USB. If never used before, I assure you it’s not as hard or complicated as it may sound or appear. When the board is plugged in, it fires up, the code executes, connecting to WIFI, and this tiny board becomes a server in your local network.

Here’s the wiring I did:

& here’s the code I flashed onto it (note you will need to add your WIFI credentials):

Continue reading ESP8266 NodeMCU LED Busy Server