Mertik Maxitrol

Questions & Help
1

I am new to Homey, I was a Domoticz user. In Domoticz I was able to control my fireplace (on, flame-up / flame-down and off) through my connected RFXcom device. The remote the fireplace uses is the Mertik Maxitrol (B6R-H8TL3B).

I searched the forum but could not find any clues in how to add this remote. I read some stuff on IR signal learning but I dont have a clue how that can be done, is there a generic IR learning app? I see some options in the developer portal but I don’t think that is the way to go.

I have got my Somfy RTS screens working because there was an app for it but I am looking for a more “generic” app that can do it all. Can some one pinpoint me to the right direction please?

Thanks,
Victor

2

Sorry, just found a way I guess…Device -> Add (+) -> Homey -> Infrared.

1 Like
3

Hey @VictorvanHillo did it work for you? I also got a fireplace which uses the Mertik Maxitrol B6R-R8P.

4

Hi Shaun,

No it did not work for me. I think I need to make an app for it. There is some documentation on the internet for it but I am not sure if I am up to the task :blush:

Regards,
Victor

5

Hi @VictorvanHillo, thanks for you quick reply. What a shame that i didn’t work out. If you managed to make an app please let me know😅!

Regards,
Shaunmitchel

6

@VictorvanHillo @Shaunmitchel I am currently looking into this. The remote sends its signal over 868.1 Mhz. When trying to interpret the signal I found that it looks like its modulated with OFDM. This is quite advanced stuff and even tough I am up to some simple reverse engineering of RF signals, this is one tough cookie. I am trying to find someone to help me out but I don’t even think Homey itself is able to demodulate signals like this. (I believe Homey only supports the most “simple/common” modulations.)

7

I came a little bit further, I am pretty sure the signal is encoded with 2-GFSK so there are more odds that i will get this working. Will keep my progress posted here for anyone interested.

If I can crack the signal I will write a driver for this…

8

Hope you will find out how it works, I gave up :wink:

9

Victor, are you in possession of a working RTL-SDR setup to record the signal of your remote for me? I could provide you with the parameters you would need to enter into a simple app or w/e.

I have “cracked” the modulation, so I can get the data out of the signal. The signal is constantly the same for the same commands, so there is no encryption. I can conclude now that I can also control my fireplace by repeating this signal!

So now all there is left, if I would want to make a universal APP that anybody can use is to identify what all the bits mean. Comparing the same commands of different remotes would help.

10

Hi Roy,

I had a RFXcom while I was using Domoticz but I sold it so at the moment I don’t have a RTL-SDR unfortunately.

Awesome you are able to control your fireplace!

Cheers,
Victor

11

You can make a recording with Homey"

https://developer.athom.com/tools/signals

image

Maybe this tool also can help you?

12

@JPe4619, that recorder doesn’t seem to work for this signal… It barely ever seems to work.
I was too optimistic, I cant control my fireplace yet. I think i’d only need to figure out how the checksum is calculated for this to work. But perhaps just repeating the signal would also be good enough for this to work.

I’ve got the following stuff figured out now:

Contributions are very welcome… Hope I can make more progress but I dont really know how to figure out the checksum…

13

Anyone made progress on this? Same point here that the only item i cannot link to Homey seems to be the fireplace (868Mhz Mertik)…

14

Hmmm…tried to install this old app, but get the message 'module’is not defined:
https://forum.athom.com/discussion/93/mertik-maxitrol-fireplace-control/p2?

@nlrb did you ever find a solution to get the Mertik Maxitrol remotes to work (for me it is the 433MhZ G6R-H4TV4 remote control). And would it be a big job to fix the code from the link above to be compatible with the current Homey? At least…it seemed to work form some remotes at that time.

Or anyone else found a solution?

15

@Paul_Kessels When I investigated some time back it did not work due to a bug in Homey core. They don’t respect the interval setting on tx anymore. The module not defined is due to that they changed the installation to require a package.json file.

16

@nlrb Thanks for your reply. Too bad. Was this bug address with Athom so it would be or might have been fixed?

17

I stopped submitting bugs with Athom quite some time back. But maybe @TedTolboom submitted it. We looked at this together at that time.

18

Hello Victor,

I brome my mérito maxitrol remote control, same model and reference you have. Do you know White i can get a New once? It look lime they Don’t Make it Anymore.

Best

19

I have a B6R-H8TL3PW (8 buttons) remote and it uses an SX1232 chip. The code on the chip of my remote is a little bit longer like SX1232 1634 9178… (could not read the rest of it, I did not open my remote for this)

The American version uses the same chip since it supports 868Mhz and 915Mhz
Internal Photographs for an American version can be found here


or here (the chipid is not readable on this one)

A datasheet can be found here https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/761/sx1232-1277478.pdf

There is an example of the CRC calculation mimicing the CRC calculation of the SX1232 on page 93.
Maybe this info could help.

20

@Marlon, refer to the link to github in my earlier post. I have the CRC check figured out already. Most data of the algorithm is known to me now, and also the CRC checksum parameters have been reverse engineered… Due to a bug in Homey this can not be transformed into an app, as so it seems according to @nlrb.