SkyQ Integration

General
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This one goes to all you UK folks (with love from US), fair warning. This was another “Blind” integration. i live in the US and have no SkyQ device, this was developed based on a Simulator and serious amount of help testing this by @harvey28

This integration will give you a Remote entity with 60+ buttons to control SkyQ devices. This was tested against a single SkyQ device, however this integration should support multi device setup and all models (hopefully). Since i cannot test, there is a discovery script in the repo to run if there are some missing buttons, etc. All in the README.md file - Please read it carefully.

Hope this is helpful/useful, enjoy.

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Thanks for this M.a.S.e . You are a star. And all without access to the hardware. Thanks to Harvey28 for the beta testing.

I was using the Home Assistant (HA) integration to control my SkyQ box via IP. There are a lot of the functions / controls missing from the HACS HA integration that I had to manage via the documented ReadMe. It’s a bit of a palaver to set up so this will save a lot of headaches for users. This integration avoids the need of using HA as a middleman and controls the SkyQ box directly via IP.

I uploaded the integration earlier and can confirm it works well. For other users, beware there are a lot of endpoints exposed by the Sky API that are redundant or duplicate controls with different names that achieve the same result. For example with the remote entity I had to remap the “back” button endpoint from “back” to “backup”. This is not a criticism of M.a.S.e as the API exposes them and we have access to everything; even older controls from hardware of yonder years. Sky have obviously just left obsolete controls exposed.

Here are my mapped buttons for this integration within a “Watch Sky TV” activity I created for anyone that might require them as an example. Note, my Volume controls are mapped to my TV which in turn controls the sound via HDMI 2.1, so you’ll have to manage this accordingly.

‘Back’ (maps to) → ‘ backup’

‘Home’ → ‘ home’

‘Power’ → leave as default and control via power on / off sequences

‘Up’ → ‘up’

‘Left” → ‘left’

‘OK’ → ‘‘select’

‘Right’ → ‘right’

‘Down” → ‘down’

“Channel up’ → ‘channelup’

‘Channel down’ → ‘channeldown’

‘Record’ → ‘record’

‘Menu’ → ‘i’

‘Voice’ → none (I don’t know if there is an API endpoint for this we can use down the line!!)

‘Previous’ → ‘rewind’

‘Stop’ → ‘stop’ (this endpoint is non functional for the SKyQ box as it doesn’t have a stop button)

‘Play/Pause’ → ‘play’

‘Next’ → ‘fastforward’

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Other mappable buttons on one of the many UI pages I created as shown above were:

‘1’ through ‘10’ as buttons corresponding to the appropriate numbered buttons on the SkyQ remote

‘Apps’ → ‘interactive’ (displays the apps screen - if anyone uses it!!!)

‘Help’ → ‘help’

‘red’, ‘green’, ‘yellow’ and ‘blue’ as the appropriate coloured buttons.

Note: I named the created entity as an IP remote as I also have an IR remote setup as a backup if needed.

Good luck.

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glad you found it useful, it was a pain to create lol.

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New version 1.0.17 is out : fixed Docker image

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Hello M.a.S.e,

Firstly I would like to say a massive thank you for this integration, i can finally remove my reliance on Home assistant to control my SkyQ box.

One thing I have noticed, and hopefully you can help with is that the ON and OFF commands act as a toggle command instead of a dedicated on-off command. Not sure if its my box or if its something anyone els has noticed? If its any help, I was able to send dedicated On/Off commands from Home Assistant.

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it could be your box. also check remote mapping commands if you can set dedicated buttons, not those that were automatically created with the entity. if still dont have it, read the README file , run the discovery script - find me on discord and share. as i do not have the device and developed this blindly, i cant test/check/enhance without these files and logs etc .

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Thanks for the quick reply but being a bit of noob I’m unsure as to where to run the discovery scrip

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install python on a computer that run on the same network as your SkyQ device. download this script and run it, it will generate an output with data thats what we need:

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New version up with dedicated power on and off commands

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This integration is great. Thank you for creating it. @harvey28 - thanks for working on this also. I am trying to figure out how to use the command sequence to provide channel buttons on the remote (as I did with the IR commands previously). Can you tell me what the correct format is to enter the command string for the digits followed by ‘select’ I guess? Thanks

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I could never get Command Sequence to work properly. I could only pass single digits. I use macros for channel selection.

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OK will do the same then. Thanks for the quick response.

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Btw, any delays required between the digits in the macro?

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I’m using 500ms delays between commands. YMMV.

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One more quick question. It doesn’t look like this integration provides a media player for use as a Widget - is that correct?

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That is correct. Unfortunately adding a media player exposes so many entities (hundreds of channels) that the integration times out on installation. So it was dropped.

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Thought so but thanks for confirming. I will just add my SkyQ media player via the Home Assistant integration then.

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I will be releasing a beta version today that should support channel selection within the remote entity.

@harvey28@harvey28, if it’s ok. I’ll send you a beta build to test via discord.

Additionally this beta version will also re add media player widget for currently playing info, without the timeout due to number of channels.

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Of course.

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Thanks again for your great work on this. Am I also correct in assuming the SkyQ API doesnt provide a way to directly access Apps directly within the interface such as Netflix and Prime?