Homey Pro as universal remote surface

Questions & Help
1

Hi,

I wonder if there is anyone who has an idea on how to fulfill this wish that I have.

I would like to be able to use Homey as a universal remote for my whole smart home system. I imagine a virtual device that functions as a control surface where I can decide which buttons and what kind of buttons I need (e.g. normal buttons, D-pad, etc.) which I then can map to whatever function on whatever device I want through Advanced Flows. It doesn’t really have to be through Advanced Flows either, I just imagined that this could be a nice way of customizing what button on this custom control surface controls what in the Homey system.

An example of what I would like to achieve:
I would like to control the most used parameters in my home theater setup from one screen on my phone. This could for instance include volume control (controlling my receiver’s volume), which HDMI input should be used, channel +/- (on STB), D-pad for controlling the menus, etc.

I have tried to search for solutions, but sadly I haven’t found anything yet. I guess I would like to turn my Homey into something similar to a Logitech Harmony Hub, but I don’t have that device. And since Homey already controls all my devices, I was hoping that it could be used for this as well.

I’m open to suggestions that are similar to what I seek without being an exact answer.

Thanks in advance!

Edit:
I know that one with the < group > app can create fused groups that could act something like what I’m trying to achieve. However, the buttons end up being unlabelled and placed in random order, so it’s a bit hard to distinguish which button does what.

2

I don’t know what you mean with ‘surface’, but I’m familiar with the Harmony remotes.
About the virtual device: when you use an advanced virtual device, part of the Device Capabilities app, you can create a device which functions as a central remote for any device you (have) install(ed) @ your Homey;

This post explains in detail what you like to accomplish, as far as I got your question right that is:

2 Likes
3

Hi, and thanks for your response.

By “surface”, I mean a custom view with a set of buttons where I can design the layout myself to make it suit my needs.

AVDs, as far as I can understand their usage, accomplishes almost everything I wanna achieve. I actually tried it before I started this topic, but there seemed to be a bug where there was a visual error when setting up the AVD preventing me from being able to set it ut right. It’s solved now, however.

The only two things I couldn’t find was a D-pad or the ability to arrange buttons to resemble a D-pad, and a custom layout design where buttons could be arranged in a coordinate system of some sort.

But as of now, I will at least try to use an AVD until I can find an even better solution.

1 Like
4

YW, Johannes,

About the buttons and arrangement, the developer can’t control the button layout (afaik), and you can only control the order.
To discuss what’s possible, you can always drop a note in the beforementioned Advanced device capabilities topic!

5

You can use telegram as a custom keyboard/remote