Tips on good remote controls for homey

A physical remote to control/trigger devices and scenarios/flows would be a nice-to-have thing I think.
I’m imagining something with many buttons, and similar to a TV-remote.

-Any suggestions and/or experience out there?
Except my wall-mounted 240V zigbee-relay-switches, I’m using IKEA remotes solely for my devices and flows. Inexpensive yes but they do not hold as many buttons as I need and layout on the 5-button remote is far from intuitive for many applications.

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You could use an old or cheap Android tablet or phone. Simply install the Homey app and then drag the desired flows onto the desktop as a widget.

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I 've considered such solution. Problem is that it also enables access to whole system for anyone that lay hands on such tablet, which is not desireable in my case. A dedicated dashboard from Homey that would run locally would ofc be an ideal solution but until such is in place (IF there will be any), I think I’ll go for a solution with physical-button remote. Thankful for your input however!

You could also solve this via a dashboard with Home Assistant. Home Assistant can be blocked for others with a password. This is what it looks like then.

What’s wrong with HomeyDash.com ?

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It requires internet connection and that HomeyDash webserver/cloud is up and running. By really bad experience from Samsung Smartthings I decided to go for a solution not relying on stable internet or any cloud-based service to control my devices and/or flows. (I guess that creates another reason for not having Homey Original Interface on a tablet btw)

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Looked into that as well briefly but this requires a HA running 24/7 on PC or Raspberry Pi, right? -Well I might end up into that solution anyhow. Sad that Athom does not provide any out-of-the-box-solution. Yet.

Thanks!

Maybe the Remotec Scene Master is something for you. It has 8 buttons that can be either triggered by pushing it once or twice, when held down or when released. It runs on 2 normal aaa batteries and comes with a wall mount.
Not very cheap, but also not really expensive for what you get. In the Netherlands it sells for about 45 to 50 euro’s.

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The Remotec Scene Master (zwave device) is my advice also. 8 buttons x 4 button triggers = 32 events to trigger. And the batteries last veeeery long. Working for long time without any problems over here.

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Yes! That remote is something I could use!!

Many thanks @PetervdK and @Torch1969 !

You can install ‘micro web server app’ and run homeydash.com locally.
Create a guest account, put the things allowed at favorite devices and you’re done.
In short😉

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I like the Nodon soft remote with four button and you can assign different flows for single, double and long push.
A bit off topic, but I also like to start flows through Alexa. Then I don’t have to find the remote first. :wink:

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I use a KaKu/Coco remote: https://klikaanklikuit.nl/product/afstandsbediening-met-16-kanalen/ and it works fine for directly switching kaku-devices but also for starting flows. And it’s small so easy to carry around the house. And it’s cheap.

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THANK you! I have checked out about same product, branded differently here in Sweden as it is part of NEXA’s portfolio. LYCT-705 | NEXA Seems like this applies for most of NEXA’s and Klikaanklikuit’s product portfolio as well! -Only branding and sometimes casing seem different. I hope and think anyway…well…I will go out by myself a NEXA and try tomorrow.

There is one separate Homey app for NEXA products and one for klikaanklikuit and the latter supports higher number of common functionality 433Mhz devices that NEXA app does. The remote you describe is for instance NOT suported in the NEXA app.

Thank you for giving me this insight…!!

Confirmed the klikaanklikuit.nl ayct-102 works like a charm. Only if you want to use proper icons or symbols, it just is a bit too small

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I added a label to the back with the numbers of channel + number of the button and abbreviations to know which button does what. Just in case I forget.

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It exists, it’s called iPhone :joy::joy:

Ah, ok. So you actually put an iPhone to the wall on every spot you need it? Seems a bit expensive, to me…

No I carry one in my pocket all the time.
Hey, don’t bother, I’m just joking…

I use old android tablet. :ok_hand:

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