Is there any such thing as a universal remote that can copy an existing remote?

[touchingcloth]

My amplifier has a terrible remote control, and having cycled through every single code on my universal remote it's not compatible with any of them.

So is there such a thing of a universal remote which doesn't work by having a preset list of codes, but where you can point the remote you want to use at it and you can choose which button will produce that same signal? It seems like it must be possible given that NFC chips can be copied in that way.

[Sebastian Cobb]

yeah they're called 'learning' remotes

[Memorex MP3]

Yeah there's ones you can get that you plug into your phone that can do this pretty effectively and cost very little. The issue is they seemingly all force you to use shitty software that takes ages to learn to do without accidentally canceling everything.

If your phone has a built in IR blaster you may be able to find software with your remote on it too. Most phones with blasters can't record incoming signals though


Loads of more straightforward ones if you just need to clone one remote


Probably very easy to write something for a pi pico that does this with minimal circuitry work and a nice phone interface too but no one has that I know of

[Sonny_Jim]

Been arsing around with Home Automation* recently, part of which was cloning a few remotes with an ESPHome device.  The TL;DR is that it's mostly pretty easy to do, you hookup an IR receiver, point a remote at it and copy the hexcode.  Certain devices (like my aircon) have silly encoding systems which are a pain to clone, but going from what my Yamaha HiFi amp remote spits out you shouldn't have too much bother with just a basic learning remote.

* _{I fall asleep in front of the TV and I always hated having to arse around switching everything off before I went to bed, so I spent about 2 weeks fucking around with wifi plugs, cloning remotes and building a little touchscreen who's only function is to turn everything off with one press of a button.  I love living in the future, me}

[greencalx]

* _{I fall asleep in front of the TV and I always hated having to arse around switching everything off before I went to bed, so I spent about 2 weeks fucking around with wifi plugs, cloning remotes and building a little touchscreen who's only function is to turn everything off with one press of a button.  I love living in the future, me}

[touchingcloth]

Probably very easy to write something for a pi pico that does this with minimal circuitry work and a nice phone interface too but no one has that I know of

Been arsing around with Home Automation* recently, part of which was cloning a few remotes with an ESPHome device. 

It needs to be something which looks and functions as similarly as possible to a traditional remote control, because of the boomers who sometimes housesit for us.

We have a lot of home automation stuff as well, the Ikea kit is decent for providing wall-mounted switches which do everything - we have most stuff programmed so that the lights dim at night and switch off in the middle of the night if they're not already, but we can switch it to just be switch controlled when the boomers are around.

We used to have one of those alarm systems which contacts the police if there's a break-in, and it was activated and deactivated with colour-coded key fobs. My most pleasing automation is one using the NFC chip in those otherwise redundant things so that they do different stuff, e.g. there's one hanging by the front gate which will turn all the outside lights on.

[Sonny_Jim]

The major issue I had with most of the solutions was that they all rely on external services, which I'm not overly fond of.  Having adjustable lighting scenes is fucking amazing though and every house should have it.  I did have a DIY ambilight clone going at one point, but because of the jankiness of how I implemented it* there was quite a bit of lag.  Looks the tits when having a screensaver going, otherwise it's just a bit too distracting for me.


* _{Hyperion to Home Assistant/ESPHome via E1.31}

[touchingcloth]

We have a thing that turns off most lights and dims some others at 10PM, but we always forget to turn it off if we have friends over so invariably we'll be sat around chatting shite when all of a sudden the lights crap out.

We have a new automation that turns the lights on for five minutes when we arrive back at the house. The other day I arrived back and immediately started cooking, and got horribly confused when half of the kitchen suddenly lost power. I spent ages looking at the consumer unit and so on trying to work out what the hell had happened.

[Sonny_Jim]

I've got an inactivity timer on a PIR in one of the rooms, but you have to set it to such a ridiculously long time (3-4hrs maybe) because of things like you described above.  I'm just happy enough to be able to press one button and have my room sort itself out into 'movie mode'.  Also see aforementioned 'fell asleep in front of the TV mode'.  Would really like a video doorbell but your options get extremely limited when your criteria is 'no phone apps'.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I've got an inactivity timer on a PIR in one of the rooms, but you have to set it to such a ridiculously long time (3-4hrs maybe) because of things like you described above.  I'm just happy enough to be able to press one button and have my room sort itself out into 'movie mode'.  Also see aforementioned 'fell asleep in front of the TV mode'.  Would really like a video doorbell but your options get extremely limited when your criteria is 'no phone apps'.

You might want to look into microwave 'presence detectors' rather than pir's for that.

[Dex Sawash]

I've got a logitech harmony remote that was brilliant for my old stupid mashup of ridiculous sony surround+ dvd player+ cable tv+game console that would make switching sources a single button push. I don't live like that anymore, just let tv play whatever now.  There was a procedure to just 69 the remotes.

[touchingcloth]

I bought a 0NEF0RALL jobbie that's done the trick, and finally allowed me to drawer my amp's PoS remote.

The one downside, it doesn't have an eject key for the DVD player, which none of the universal remotes I've owned have ever had, so there's a gap in the market there for any budding entrepreneurs among you. It's sort of a redundant key as you need to physically go to the machine to remove the disc anyway, but it's weird that they're missing as presumably Blu-ray players typically have remotes with that button. Actually, what's weirder now that I think of it is that none of the universal remotes I've owned have had a slot to programme Blu-ray players.