[RELEASE] Send IP2IR - Control all of your IR devices from your Dashboard

⚙️ Custom Apps and Drivers Custom Apps
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*** BPTWorld apps are no longer being developed or maintained. Thanks ***

Introducing 'Send IP2IR' app and driver!
Now you can control all of your IR devices from your Dashboard.

  • 100% Local Control - Uses Telnet to 'talk' to the device
  • Parent/Child App structure
  • Create as many child apps as needed
  • Create Child apps for Switches - Things that use two commands (Television power, Stereo power, etc.)
  • Create Child apps for Buttons - Things that use one command (Vol up/down, Channel up/down, Inputs, etc.)
  • Create Child apps for Channels - Send 3 digits at a time to change the channel (851, 922, 804, etc.)
  • Uses Hubitat's standard Virtual Switches and Virtual Buttons to control the IR
  • Create amazing Dashboards to control your entire entertainment system
  • Devices are also available to use in Rule Machine, Alexa and Google Home
  • IP2IR device can 'learn' just about any button off of any IR remote control. Think electric fireplaces, portable AC's, that type of stuff.
  • Over 200,000 device IR codes are available at https://irdb.globalcache.com/

Requires the Global Cache IP2IR iTach Wired TCP/IP to IR
(note: I have no affiliation with Global Cache)

Confirmed: Also works with the WF2IR

Apps can be found on my GitHub or by using Bundle Manager.

When reporting problems...

  • Be sure you are on the latest version. I won't troubleshoot an older version.
  • Turn on debug and screenshot the issue happening in the log. One line or just the error doesn't cut it. I need a log.
  • Post the screenshot of the log with an explanation of the problem.

Thanks

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Screenshots and Notes:

Screenshot%20IR%20Dashboard%202
Screenshot IR Dashboard 2.jpg1901×880 357 KB

Notes:

  • When creating a Virtual Button, be sure to press the 'Push' button one time to initialize the device.

  • When entering in the IR codes...all you need is this portion: (basically the first set of numbers including the sendir and NO quotes)
    sendir,1:1,1,38000,1,37,8,34,8,65,8,29,8,106,8,50,8,50,8,44,8,101,8,525,8,34,8,34,8,29,8,29,8,29,8,101,8,29,8,29,8,3058,8,34,8,65,8,29,8,106,8,50,8,50,8,44,8,101,8,525,8,34,8,75,8,70,8,29,8,29,8,101,8,29,8,29,8,3058

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Wow.. Hundred bucks.

Steep entry fee. :frowning:

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That's a lot cheaper than Harmony w/remote. :grinning:

And this works with Hubitat and it's 100% local.

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Not sure what US street prices you're seeing regularly for Harmony, but in Canada you can fairly regularly find just the hub (which is really the comparison we should be drawing here) for $99. The Global Cache IP2IR iTach Wired TCP/IP to IR is around $153 CAD after import fees.

Not knocking the choice, and it's a great thing you've done for the community. I just wonder why not Harmony Hub via IP? I thought I read somewhere that there was local IP based control possible with the Harmony Hub. Is that not correct information?

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Never heard of anybody doing this, never really looked either though. :grinning:

Biggest advantages of the IP2IR devices...

  • 100% local control
  • No internet required
  • Device can 'learn' just about any button off of any IR remote control. Think electric fireplaces, portable AC's, that type of stuff.
  • No authorization codes needed...Harmony won't give any to Hubitat.
    Harmony connectivity
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Point two is important. Had forgotten that even if you could send IP locally to Harmony, it won't do a thing if it loses internet connection.

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This is neat, though the IP2IR is quite a steep price for my (currently?) limited cases where I'd use one of these. I have the "original" ZMote, which no longer seems to be available (a "pro" model is on their website now but no details on availability or price), but it's basically a little WiFi-accessible IR blaster that you can send commands to via an HTTP API or their webapp. That thing was very cheap--I want to say close to $20. Mine is now just sitting around since it barely worked with ST and I never bothered trying it on Hubitat, but this might encourage me to try the same. (The community-created ST workaround was a bit awkward--it created virtual buttons, but you had to supply a lot of information from the ZMote yourself to get each button set up the right way.)

If anyone is able to find a used one (since I don't think they make new anymore) and wants an IP-accessible IR blaster, the ZMote is definitely likely to be more affordable. However, the IP2IR integration above looks much easier to use, and I'm guessing the ZMote Pro won't be quite as cheap as the original. Just throwing out options there in case anyone was interested but not $100 interested (or already had a ZMote and wanted to work on a Hubitat integration before me :slight_smile: ).

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This looks like a great solution to replace the Harmony. I did some poking around yesterday into the various Harmony control solutions via .js and it looks like you have to get the authorization codes from the Logitech website (maybe that is why Hubitat has its hands tied?) before you can send commands to the hub locally and even then it appeared that you had to hit the web for certain commands, though not entirely sure about that. I want something that is completely local and will not hamstring connections like Logitech is apparently doing. Thank you @bptworld!

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That may not be entirely true... My Harmony Hub worked flawlessly along with its remote control for a week without any internet connection. The remote control talks directly to the hub, in this scenario (i.e. the remote control does NOT emit any IR itself, it relies on the Harmony Hub for all IR and LAN commands to the various devices.)

The 'harmony-api' nodejs server that runs on a Raspberry Pi (or similar) also does not use the Internet for any communications (as best as I can tell.) It is able to perform a local network discovery of Harmony Hubs, and each of their defined Activities (and a whole lot more.) You can then use the RESTful API to send LAN based commands to the Harmony Hub.

Ideally, though, I would like to see native Hubitat integration that does not require a Cloud or RPi server as an intermediary. Something more akin to the Lutron LAN integration is what I'd love to see.

One more thing... Very nice work Bryan @bptworld!

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Yes, but I believe that is Bluetooth between the remote and hub. Was your node server still communicating with the Harmony Hub during the outage?

Same here. It's such a cool little bridge and so many of us have it already, but I love what Bryan has create too. Agreed, nice work!

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I wasn't running the 'harmony-api' nodejs server. That would be a very good test. I haven't had a need for it ever since @mattw ported the ST App/Drivers. I have been using that without any issues (except for the fact that it is cloud based.)

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When I browsed the code from @bptworld, I noticed that he is communicating with it via telnet. So in a way, this device is akin to the Lutron integration. Agreed that this is too expensive for me at this point (you can frequently get the Harmony hub with a remote for sub $70)....but I'll be keeping my eye out as we see this integration improve ...especially if the Hubitat team takes it under their wing for an official integration.

Also agree that this is great work from @bptworld!

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I've had an IP2IR for over 5 years, and it's been rock solid. I had a Harmony remote before that (not the hub though). I've been very happy with the IP2IR and it's ability to integrate with multiple platforms during that time.

Looking forward to trying out this driver soon. :grin:

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Wow - what good timing. I just got one of these a couple of days ago with the hope that Id be able to integrate into my present system and get rid of harmony...

This now looks so much more likely to happen. Thanks.

This is a great community.

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@bptworld @csteele

I just built a couple of my own based on an esp8266 for 5 bucks... then wrote an app in ST to interface it.. (I’ve not ported it yet though unfortunately) :smile:

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F36F3901-AD5F-41BF-AFF2-888FC13E6BDF.png816×612 929 KB

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Funny..I'm also working on an app for my NodeMCU esp8266 based off the same mdhiggins project. Got a loooong way to go to make this user friendly, but I have it working the way I need for now.

Yours is a lot prettier and compact though...with an external blaster as well. Very cool.

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20181006_1724372268×4032 2.62 MB

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I used a Wemos Mini D1, you can get a PCB that fits on top to add the components..

The one with the IR blaster is a Samsung TV ir blaster, you can pick them up from ebay, it’s multidirectional and you can hide the wemos then...

The other one has two emitters and one receiver, but emitting is very directional.. happy to share the code I have used in ST..

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Yeah..that's the one drawback of my setup, but it still works really well. I like the nodemcu option for now because I can use one device for several rooms. I have a bunch of glass break sensors that arent being used anymore and I am repurposing their wiring back to my alarm panel (where I keep the esp8266 device). I have the IR led sticking out of the ceiling to control devices. Works perfectly and I plan to add LED's to my other bedrooms.

Please do.

Hopefully it's a lot better than what I'm building. I'm finding it difficult to keep the number of input variable to a reasonable number. With just one device, ~10 commands, and 3 macro commands...I had close to 100 settings/inputs in my smartApp. I'm working my way around that by saving the data/type/length/etc data as one string and converting it to a map before sending to the esp web server. Quite challenging.

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Mine is probably simpler than yours, mine creates a virtual switch and only handles on and off, the command is then stored as a setting in the device rather than the app