I’ve tried searching on here, but I am not really sure what I am searching for, so I come asking for some advice.
I currently have a power socket strip behind my TV which has an IR receiver. When I press the power button on my TV remote, it powers down the strip, switching off all the other devices. When I press the power button to turn on the TV, the IR receiver detects it, and powers back up the strip, turning the TV and the other devices back on. Its worked well for many years, but more recently is been playing up.
I’m unable to find a ready made replacement, so was wondering if I could implement my own - using an IR receiver to turn a Z-Wave socket on and off (with a “dumb” power socket strip plugged into the Z-Wave socket).
The bit I am stuck on is the IR bit - I have looked on here and see mentions of Broadlink RM2, the Harmony devices, Global Cache, Keene IR, iTach WiFi … but I am struggling to fathom out what would best suit my needs (if any!).
Would anyone have any suggestions or pointers to get me started ?
I use the KIRA (Keene IR plugin) with a Xantec XLIP200 and it works great. Once the IR receiver is setup and configured, you teach the IR code using the plugin and then have that code being received trigger an event. I use PLEGG for my event handling since I have numerous codes controlling lights, outlets, etc that I want to control via IR, but you can also use a simple scene with the KIRA plugin as the trigger (you enter in the IR code name).
I may have a spare Keene IR module if you decide to go that way - bought both it and the Xantech at the same time. Happy to sell it to a good home at a discount from new.
But a simple one (albeit non-Vera) is one of the APC master-controlled surge protectors. All they do is switch some of the other sockets on-off if they detect the “master” socket has turned on/off. Generally this was designed to be a PC, but if you see the reviews on Amazon, it seems to work with some TVs (clearly not all). So this bypasses the IR need on the power strip completely…
Yep, I use the Kira on UI7 and works great for this application. On my remote I added a device that I don’t own so that it would send out IR codes that were unique and wouldn’t conflict with my AV equipement, then learned those codes into the Kira (Keen IR), and trigger scenes based off of the different button presses. I use this to control the lights in my media room mostly. (I actually added the Lutron IR scene controller to my universal remote because it had button names like Scene 1, Dim, Brighten, etc, which were then easy to remember to map to my Vera scenes, and I don’t have an Lutron IR capable scene controller in my house).
Itach will also do this, but it is a little more geared to sending IR codes out as part of a Vera Scene, versus using IR coming in to trigger a scene. I believe it can do it, but there seems to also be issues with the latest ITach Flex and the ITach plug-ins etc.
[quote=“wilme2, post:3, topic:194658”]I have a lot of complicated thoughts on this…
But a simple one (albeit non-Vera) is one of the APC master-controlled surge protectors. All they do is switch some of the other sockets on-off if they detect the “master” socket has turned on/off. Generally this was designed to be a PC, but if you see the reviews on Amazon, it seems to work with some TVs (clearly not all). So this bypasses the IR need on the power strip completely…[/quote]
I did consider one of those, but could see several issues:
[ul][li]The TV doesn’t turn off when I press the power button on the remote, it puts it into StandBy[/li]
[li]If the Master socket detects that as OFF and powers down all the sockets, thereby turning off the power to the TV, then I have no way to turn the TV back on from the remote.[/li]
[li]If it doesn’t power down the Master socket, just the slaves, then the TV stays in StandBy all day[/li]
[li]If the Master socket doesn’t detect StandBy as being OFF, then the sockets remain powered on, i.e. wouldn’t work at all[/li][/ul]
That was the sole reason for the IR on the original power saving strip - and I was extremely surprise that there doesn’t seem to be anything on the market to replace it!
[quote=“boykster, post:2, topic:194658”]I use the KIRA (Keene IR plugin) with a Xantec XLIP200 and it works great. Once the IR receiver is setup and configured, you teach the IR code using the plugin and then have that code being received trigger an event. I use PLEGG for my event handling since I have numerous codes controlling lights, outlets, etc that I want to control via IR, but you can also use a simple scene with the KIRA plugin as the trigger (you enter in the IR code name).
I may have a spare Keene IR module if you decide to go that way - bought both it and the Xantech at the same time. Happy to sell it to a good home at a discount from new.[/quote]
Thank you for the very kind offer! I’m guessing you maybe based in the US as a quick search for the XLIP200 suggested it was more common over there? If so, As I am based in the UK the shipping would probably not be worth it in the end.
[quote=“shallowearth, post:4, topic:194658”]Yep, I use the Kira on UI7 and works great for this application. On my remote I added a device that I don’t own so that it would send out IR codes that were unique and wouldn’t conflict with my AV equipement, then learned those codes into the Kira (Keen IR), and trigger scenes based off of the different button presses. I use this to control the lights in my media room mostly. (I actually added the Lutron IR scene controller to my universal remote because it had button names like Scene 1, Dim, Brighten, etc, which were then easy to remember to map to my Vera scenes, and I don’t have an Lutron IR capable scene controller in my house).
Itach will also do this, but it is a little more geared to sending IR codes out as part of a Vera Scene, versus using IR coming in to trigger a scene. I believe it can do it, but there seems to also be issues with the latest ITach Flex and the ITach plug-ins etc.[/quote]
[quote=“lordgoata, post:6, topic:194658”][quote=“boykster, post:2, topic:194658”]I use the KIRA (Keene IR plugin) with a Xantec XLIP200 and it works great. Once the IR receiver is setup and configured, you teach the IR code using the plugin and then have that code being received trigger an event. I use PLEGG for my event handling since I have numerous codes controlling lights, outlets, etc that I want to control via IR, but you can also use a simple scene with the KIRA plugin as the trigger (you enter in the IR code name).
I may have a spare Keene IR module if you decide to go that way - bought both it and the Xantech at the same time. Happy to sell it to a good home at a discount from new.[/quote]
Thank you for the very kind offer! I’m guessing you maybe based in the US as a quick search for the XLIP200 suggested it was more common over there? If so, As I am based in the UK the shipping would probably not be worth it in the end.[/quote]
Ah - yep, since Keene is UK based, whatever discount I give you will be eaten by shipping…it’s not too expensive, but it is a nice piece of kit.
yep - that’s the one I bought as well. Anyone reading this US based that wants one, shoot me a PM if you want to buy one for less than list. I have a spare that I’m not using.
I have looked at the Keene website, is this the correct device: [url=http://www.keene.co.uk/keene-ir-anywhere-ir-over-ip-module-single.html]