Simple IR blaster / Google home without Chinese rubbish!

katie279 · 13 Sep 2020 at 09:19

Ok, wanting to achieve something seemingly simple I hope....!

1) have a TV in bedroom with an electric mount
2) it has two IR settings on its remote: open and close
3) unfortunately, given TV mounts appear to be frozen in the mid-1980s, the only connectivity is IR remotes, so I'd like to get it connected via WiFi so I can use Google home etc

I've tried a switchbot, which just doesn't work properly - possibly because it doesn't connect to a 5ghz WiFi (it seems to connect fine, but is just sporadic and erratic) and loses connection constantly.

Can anyone advise on a good solution for this - don't really want to spend a huge amount given I'm only using this to open and close a mount, but want something that will perform this task reliably...!

Any help much appreciated!

5punk3monk3y · 13 Sep 2020 at 18:29

I recon the harmony remote will achieve this as it works via ir and hooks in to Google home, you can teach it the ir "zap" and then build an activity which will then work with Google. If you get the hub version you can set that up somewhere that's line of sight also.

tom_nieto · 13 Sep 2020 at 20:32

5punk3monk3y said:
I recon the harmony remote will achieve this as it works via ir and hooks in to Google home, you can teach it the ir "zap" and then build an activity which will then work with Google. If you get the hub version you can set that up somewhere that's line of sight also.

Seconded. Our Harmony Hub is brilliant and can bring together WiFi and IR commands in a single activity.

deuse · 14 Sep 2020 at 08:47

katie279 said:
Ok, wanting to achieve something seemingly simple I hope....!

1) have a TV in bedroom with an electric mount
2) it has two IR settings on its remote: open and close
3) unfortunately, given TV mounts appear to be frozen in the mid-1980s, the only connectivity is IR remotes, so I'd like to get it connected via WiFi so I can use Google home etc

I've tried a switchbot, which just doesn't work properly - possibly because it doesn't connect to a 5ghz WiFi (it seems to connect fine, but is just sporadic and erratic) and loses connection constantly.

Can anyone advise on a good solution for this - don't really want to spend a huge amount given I'm only using this to open and close a mount, but want something that will perform this task reliably...!

Any help much appreciated!

Take a look at the broadlink products.
Cheaper and better than the rest.

katie279 · 14 Sep 2020 at 17:15

Excellent - cheers all, I'll have a look at these!

katie279 · 19 Sep 2020 at 13:53

Ok, my harmony hub has arrived and it seems pretty rubbish so far (not sure if I'm missing anything).

Ancient app with 2.5 stars in app store suggest I'm not alone...!

It seems to only be designed for TVs, so having to bodge it a bit to get it to control the TV mount, however it needs to be able to learn two buttons in sequence to work which seems beyond its capabilities - ie to open the TV mount I press '1' and then 'ok', so it'd need to learn both of these)

Am I missing anything here?

Half thinking I'll just need to program it myself.....!

5punk3monk3y · 19 Sep 2020 at 19:01

Did you get just the hub or is it the remote and hub?

You can add any device and beam the remote buttons in to the hub/remote. Then set up an activity and include the TV / whatever else and the mount.

Once the activity is set up you can then edit it and add button presses and even add a delay between them.

I have a TV here not in the data base yet I added it to harmony along with the basic buttons and set up a routine. It's not plug and play and takes a little tweaking but when you nail it...

katie279 · 20 Sep 2020 at 20:10

Hi spunkymonkey (ahem...!

)

Yes, I got just the hub - it seemed to be very slow to register IR presses etc, so it was taking 20-30mins, so might give it another go then if it's possible.

Agree once setup it should be sorted...