Home Assistant + Remote 2 for dummies

General
1

New to Home Assistant, set up a HA Green with the specific purpose of integration with the Remote 2.

I’ve been able to set up some various scenes that are pulling triggers from my Kaleidescape and AppleTV and they work when using my Harmony, but I want to get switched over to using the Remote 2.

I’m primarily concerned with a single room, and not a ton of components, I just need to know the best way to implement remote control over the devices, which will pull up the scenes.

Not all the devices are able to be integrated with Home Assistant, so I will also need to be using IR from the Remote 2.

Components:

  • JVC X790R projector (RS540)
  • Lumagen Radiance Pro (will require IR)
  • Anthem AVM-60 (seems to require IR, can’t get it working via HA)
  • Kaleidescape Strato C
  • AppleTV 4K
  • Blu-ray Player TBA (Sony just died)
  • Govee lighting (working great with HA)

So essentially I want to have “Activities” that will power up the desired devices and set the “Welcome” lighting scene and the remote configuration to control playback and volume. If I want to switch to a different device to watch something different, I would select a different Activity, which would change input on the processor, power on the new source, etc., based on current state of each device.

So, knowing that the Lumagen and Anthem are required in every Activity I want to set, and they will require IR control, and probably (preferably) a specified power-on sequence to facilitate the proper system HDMI handshake, I’m assuming I should be doing this primarily in the Remote 2, but how much of it, and how do I utilize the HA for sensing current states?

Thanks in advance. If needed, I’m willing to hire someone to help me get all this configured properly.

2

Anyone? I need a nudge in the right direction. Has anyone written a guide for this? Some sort of jump start? The official documentation is basically worthless, more for marketing than helping actual users.

Quite frankly, this hardware is very well done, but with all the hardware delays I’m shocked at how unprepared the software and documentation was, and still is.

3

On your Anthem, do you have Connected Standby enabled? That might be why HA is not seeing it. It’s a core integration so it should work. Have you looked in the HA community forums?

I am sure I am doing it the clumsy way around, but I am creating scripts for each function I want HA to control and then those show up in the HA integration in R2. I suspect there’s a better way, so I would wait for some better responses.

4

Have a look at this page.

Andreas

5

I do have that set, but I’m only able to get it to appear as a media player (play-fi) but no other sort of control is available.

6

I’ve had that document open since the Remote arrived. It’s half basic, elementary installation info (which is better than the provided info), and then seems to jump straight to advanced troubleshooting. There’s no good info in the middle area.

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7

Try using telnet to see if you can control it over IP. Use Putty from your PC and (should be port 23) and send “IDQ?;” (without the quotes) and you should get model number, serial number, etc in return. If that works, you can use Node Red in HA to create HA buttons that you can pass onto the R2.

I am using that method to send IP commands to my NAD AVR for commands that only exist in serial.

Anthem IP commands are here: https://www.anthemav.com/downloads/MRX-x20-AVM-60-IP-RS-232.xls

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8

I appreciate it, and would love to get there, but I have no idea what “use telnet” means.

I think this is the main issue I’m having is that I’m not a code guy, I’m not a developer, I’m an AV guy who just wants to control the theater with a well-built remote. This device seems to be intended for a different customer base at this point.

I’m pretty good at picking things up quickly, but being new to HA on top of the remote itself is making things very difficult. I live in the gap of the instructions between basic and advanced.

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9

With regards to the lumagen device, I have heard back from the company and received a more recently confirmed/validated set of codes and the following response:

“The main Lumagen IR codes have been the same for over 20 years. We have dropped some that were used in the Vision series, and added others. We recieved our IR codes from an IR remote vendor in 2002. So, they predate the current common industry IR format. Some IR controllers can learn our codes if they look at the timing of pulses. However, if an IR controller is looking for the common industry IR codes they cannot learn our IR codes (e.g. Control 4).

I just sent Unfolded a message explaining who Lumagen is and that we would like to integrate our IR codes into their database. If they are willing to work with us, we will try to get the Lumagen IR codes into their database.”

I’ve also found this logic explaining the timing that needs to be taken into account.

Description of IR Code
Each of the buttons on the remote transmits a message that consists of 13 short bursts of Infrared (IR) energy. Every IR energy burst is identical in frequency and duration. Every IR burst consists of 16 cycles of IR energy at a carrier frequency of 38kHz. The duration of every IR burst is 400 us. It is the gap between these IR bursts that contains the information. There are three different gap lengths.
• Short gaps are 2.5 ms between IR bursts.
• Long gaps are 5.0 ms between IR bursts.
• The inter-message gap is 11.0 ms long.
• A logic 0 consists of a 400 us IR burst followed by a short gap.
• A logic 1 consists of a 400 us IR burst followed by a long gap.
• The first 4 gaps are the preamble, consisting of two short gaps (logic 0), a long gap (logic 1), then a short gap (logic 0).
• This is followed by a parity bit to help ensure data integrity. The parity bit will be a long gap (logic 1) when there is an odd number of long gaps (logic 1).
• A short gap (logic 0) follows the parity bit.
• The next 7 gaps contain the button information, arranged as 4 bits for row 0-15 and 2 bits for column 1-4. After the final information gap there is an IR burst followed by a long (11.0 ms) inter- message gap.
For example, pressing the key in the fourth row, third column will produce the code: 0010 00 0011 10. Preamble 0010, parity bit 0, row 0011, column 10. This is the IR code for the number “3”.

10

This assumes you want to tinker, but it’s not that difficult. Download a program called Putty.

When the dialogue box comes up, select “Other/Telnet” (red circle) and enter the IP address of your AVR (yellow).
image

You will then get a window that looks something like this:
image

Type: IDQ; (with the semi-colon). If you get a response, then you can use telnet to issue IP commands to your Anthem. If that works, I’ll post direction on how to make this work with HA.

11

Excellent. I will give this a try.

Question: will this app need to always be running to function? Im running HA on a Green and I’m not sure if I know how to install an app on there, but I can test with my Surface.

12

No … it’s for testing purposes only and run it from a PC. It if works then you will need to add the Node Red add-on to your HA setup (which is easy).

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13

I’m getting an error when trying to connect to the Anthem. To confirm it’s not a network error I was able to see the Kaleidescape player via Putty, though the connection was refused.

Overarching question, since I have someone listening (thank you very much, by the way):

Is using Home Assistant to control devices going to be a possibility, anyway, knowing that the Lumagen will not likely be controllable via HA in the near future, and the Lumagen needs to be part of the power on/power off process, and it requires specific order and timing?

I feel like I’m one device away from being able to start using the Remote 2, if I could just get the Lumagen working properly with it, I could start experiment with building activities, and move everything over to HA IP control as I learn more about that.

As everything stands, I have HA running automations based on triggers from the Kaleidescape and AppleTV. If I could get everything controllable via the Remote, I’d be happy for now, as I learn the rest going forward. It wouldn’t be so frustrating if I could be using the remote and learning.

14

There is a definite learning curve. I’ve programmed lots of integrator remotes (mostly URC), but working using HA as a hub is new for me. After banging my head against the wall I discovered Node Red as an HA add-on and a way to provide IP control to both my NAD AVR and my Bravia TV. Unfortunately, no one has built a palette for controlling Anthem.

Anthem can definitely be controlled by IR with the R2 so really the question is how to deal with your Lumagen. I’m sure there’s a way of getting it to work. You might want to try posting in the R2 Discord forum, the HA Reddit, and/or the HA community forums for help as I think it’s probably beyond me to help you figure that out.

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15

Are you still searching for the Lumagen IR Codes or am i wrong with your goal?
On Global Cache is a code set for only 1 device from Lumagen. Maybe it works for you.
If you want to give it a try, here is the Power on command for example:

function: POWER ON

code1: sendir,1:1,1,38000,1,1,16,96,16,96,16,192,16,96,16,96,16,96,16,96,16,96,16,96,16,192,16,192,16,192,16,415

hex code1: 0000 006C 0000 000D 0010 0060 0010 0060 0010 00C0 0010 0060 0010 0060 0010 0060 0010 0060 0010 0060 0010 0060 0010 00C0 0010 00C0 0010 00C0 0010 019F

I would try the second code and choose format Pronto.

You need to register at Global Cache to get the codes per mail (limited/day) :wink:

Edit:
If you need the complete code set for Lumagen or your specific Anthem AVR just let me know… got a verified account on Global Cache :wink:
By the way… Global Cache import is on the Remote Two roadmap!

Greetings from Germany (also an AV Nerd here, but Marantz :grin:)

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16

I have been provided the codes for the Lumagen, but there is a qualification with some timing, which I posted above. The codes from Global Cache do not function in the Remote 2 when simply added as is. They test fine, but do not control the Lumagen.

I was able to use the codes provided to me through an online PRONTO code generator and get the Power On function to work, but nothing else.

17

Anthem has IR commands available for download on its website. HTH.

18

Yes, I have the Anthem working via IR, but my long-term plan is to get everything working via HA and IP control.

I’ve still not been able to get an answer to the question of controlling devices within an activity that requires specific power-on/power-off process when those devices are split between HA and IR control. Is this going to be possible, or do I have to keep them all within one realm or another to maintain accurate timing of the on/off process?

19

A lot of info I wish I had when I first got mine!

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20

So, still no luck on the Lumagen.

The Lumagen CEO and Developer have reached out to Unfolded Circle to work on integrating their remote commands but as far as I’m aware have not received a response.

The global cache codes do not work.

The R2 is incapable of learning the commands directly from the Lumagen remote or the Harmony remote.

Seems that until UC decides they want to work with Lumagen that this will be a very pretty paperweight for me.

Disappointing because I’d really like to be using it but this makes it worthless. Doesn’t seem like adding IR commands should be that much of a lift for devs who are releasing a remote control.