Based on the searching I’ve done on this topic, complaining about Homey’s (lack of) IR functionality seems to be a popular passtime around here, but I can’t find any threads about the specific issue I’m having so I figured I’d ask. Please redirect me if I missed a relevant conversation.
I would like to tie some automations to my Hisense L9G projector. In theory it’s controllable via the network but for various reasons that does not work here (that’s an entirely different story). So it seems like IR is probably the way to go, and fortunately the Homey Pro 2023 has a good IR blaster! Yay!
…sort of. It is supposed to work with Athom’s extensive database of IR codes, and to my surprise they actually had codes for the Hisense L9G projector. Also, the codes seem to work! But, they do everything twice. This is fine for volume control but it really doesn’t work for power, because it means every time I try to turn the projector off it immediately turns itself back on, and vice versa. Not ideal, especially considering turning the projector on/off is the main thing I want to achieve.
I thought I might be able to use the new feature that allows the sending of custom pronto hex IR codes, but I can’t find them online for this projector. In theory I could use the remote itself to detect the codes, but the Homey Pro’s inability to learn IR codes is well documented.
Long story short: does anyone know how to get the IR function to reduce how many times it repeats commands? Or, if that isn’t possible, does anyone know a good way to figure out pronto hex codes for a relatively obscure product?
It’s possible the signal is bounced, and the bounced signal arrives a tiny bit later, and can cause the double command issue.
You could try blocking one (or two, or three) side of the IR receiver, with a piece of cardboard for instance.
In theory you can find out if the signal is sent for too long, or if the signal is bouncing.
Couldn’t find any pronto hex code for your device…
Thanks @Peter_Kawa and @Dijker - I will play around with blocking sides this weekend to see if that has any effect. But if it is a duplicate signal then good to know there might be a fix coming soon!
Every IR (and RF) transceiver will send the message several times, the number of re-sending is programmed in software, so Athom can change this, maybe they should make the number of repeats settable so you can adjust it for different devices.
Update: I reached out to Athom support to see if they could send me the IR codes for my device, since they have them in their database. They took a while to get back and said “I don’t have the hex codes,” which probably just means they are not in the support materials and that support person doesn’t have a way to ask the people that do. Which is annoying, but par for the course for technical support.
They also mentioned that this is a known issue but stopped short of saying it will be fixed soon:
The issue with IR sending signals twice has already been reported by other users. I can’t give any guarantees on when this issue will be found and resolved, but please know that it has been forwarded to our development team and it will be investigated. We hope to resolve this issue as soon as possible.
Not particularly encouraging for a prompt fix, so I’ll just do without I guess.
It sure seems like it should! Thanks for pointing that out! I guess my cynicism was misplaced, and that support agent didn’t know about the recent update.
I just gave it a try again, and even though repetitions is set to ‘1’ it is still turning the projector off and then on again. I will have to play around with it some more; I’ll delete and re-create the IR device to make sure there aren’t any residual settings from the previous initialization.
I’m open to other ideas - if they created a setting that supposedly eliminates signal repetition, then I don’t understand why it is behaving this way.
Blaming the support and development of Homey.
But couldn’t it be that the internal solution doesn’t use a database with Pronto Hex codes. And that they dont have these Pronto Hex as the other code is the signal definition internally used
While I see them use the Pronto Hex sometimes for dumb devices they often use the other signal definitions in their code.
Maybe ask the device manufacturer if there are separate on and off commands available as the on/off toggle is nice for a small remote to spare one button out, but not really smart.
You know you can see the actual IR signals by looking through your phone cam?
I did not know this, but that is an excellent idea! I tried it - it’s obviously hard to say for sure what’s going on in a high frequency signal by eye, but it definitely appears as though the Homey Pro is sending out two distinct pulses of IR, while the original remote only sends out one. The repetitions in the Homey device settings are set to “1,” so it could be that the IR signal in the database is itself duplicated? Or that the new repetitions feature has an error.
@Dijker, you make a very valid point. For starters, what I said may have come across harsher than I intended - I did not really mean to criticize Athom’s support. I know that the engineers and deep technical experts at ANY company do not have time to answer the deluge of customer questions that come in, so they hire support staff and train them to help with the most common customer issues. For a request as esoteric as mine, I was well aware that there was little chance a support specialist would be able to directly retrieve underlying codes from Athom’s IR database. My (distant) hope was that they might forward the question to someone deeper in the company with that technical knowledge, and by saying “I don’t have the hex codes,” they implied they didn’t do that. Which is fine – it was a long shot of a request.
My mistaken assumption, as you correctly pointed out, was that they were stored as hex codes. I should have asked more generally for “IR signal codes,” knowing that Athom must have them in some form or another, and that I can convert the format as needed. I suspect that if the right person had been asked they would have understood the intent of the question and provided whatever format they have, but maybe not.
In any case I am not going to keep bothering Athom support about this. I am purchasing an IR receiver so that I can decode the signals myself - I’m sure that will come in handy for other projects too. I’ll report back on what I find.
Maybe ask the device manufacturer if there are separate on and off commands available as the on/off toggle is nice for a small remote to spare one button out, but not really smart.
This is a good idea - I do not like the toggle button either. Unfortunately I suspect there is roughly a 0% chance that Hisense support can provide me IR codes - it was a long shot even for a small company like Athom. For a Chinese behemoth like Hisense it’s hopeless. But hey, I’ll give it a go.
Could set «repeat» till 0 hjelp? If repeat means - well repeat? The maybe 0 will be like no repeat but still send the initial signal? Just kinda like hit me as a possible solution?
I am embarrassed I did not find this myself - I swear I did a LOT of searching for Hisense L9G IR codes on the Hisense website, various forums, IR websites and general googling, but I think my mistake was always including the model name in my search. These appear to be older generic Hisense codes that didn’t come up in any of my searches, but at least the discrete ON and OFF commands work perfectly. Thank you @Dijker for your superior googling skills, and for sharing that document!
This basically solves my problem to 100% satisfaction, but now I’m invested in figuring out what’s going on with the built-in Homey IR functions. I’m still getting that IR receiver and will report back with more diagnostics, in case that helps fix similar problems for other devices.
@Jon_Magne_Soltveit_G that occurred to me too, but the minimum allowed number of repetitions is 1. It’s possible that ambiguity is actually causing the issue, though.
@Peter_Kawa I did try blocking reflections just in case, but there was no change
Agreed completely. I was using it because I thought it was the only option, but it’s less reliable and required more complicated flows. The discrete codes you found are much better and I’ll definitely keep using them even if Athom fixes the repetition issue. Thanks again!
