Unfolded Circle Remote 3

Interesting write-up.

Do you have an example of a use case in which you use Homey to trigger an activity on the remote?

I see some users on the Unfolded Circle Discord server posting images of battery information and drain via Home Assistent. Do you perhaps know whether the API provides that information? Would be interesting if such info could also be made available to Homey, to monitor the battery usage. But maybe that is something for the Unfolded Circle app for Homey to include.

Ow sure;

As noted I am former Harmony Elite guy, and with that I could use Homey to start/end activities, without using the remote. Opening up options to start something based on something totally different. This was due to the Harmony Hub app on Homey.

Also Logitech Harmony can be connected through Google Home for voice commands and I have a bunch setup through the house. They basically start through Homey and trigger the specific flow)

Now with Remote 3, yes I can start things on the remote.
And while you can Trigger using the UnfoldedCircle App on Homey BUT that still means it has to be started on the remote’s end.

But what If I want to start something (a activity/remote) without the remote? Well that is where my curl write-up come in.

Beforehand some more details on Macros;
Basically they are single sequence (run) activities without providing any controls (pages) on the remote. Which can come in quite handy.

On to a few use case examples;

Voice command example 1 - Triggered through Google

Voice command example 2 - Triggered through Google

Macro example - When housemate arrives and im playing music

Macro example - When it’s time to watch the News around dinner time hahaha :wink:

Hope that gives a bit of an idea but in genera the TLDR is; I wanted to have the Remote 3 work hands-on ands hands-off , and with the previous explanation … it can. Opening up quite some options, to combine the reach (integrations/flows etc.) of Homey with it.

So while Remote 3 is a bit more work, it is waaaaayyy more flexible for me then the Harmony Elite. And I couldn’t be more pleased with it.

As for getting battery details
Im unsure how/if the Unfolded API provides that but if it does you could get it with a GET curl request and then store it and use it I guess. I’ll give that look a bit.

EDIT:

A there it is;
curl ``http://remote3-local/api/system/power/battery`` -u web-configurator:PINHERE

It returns;
{“capacity”:97,“status”:“DISCHARGING”,“power_supply”:false}

Thanks for your detailed response! Nice to see that you have found a worthy successor for your Harmony Elite setup.

I am switching from a 15+ year old Harmony One (with only IR control) to the Remote 3. That by itself offers a major step forward in possible use cases. The Harmony One still works perfectly, but I cannot add or change any devices/buttons anymore as the required software/service has been discontinued.

One thing I need to get used to is the battery life: from several weeks on a single charge on the Harmony, to 1-2 days on the Remote 3.

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No prob, battery life, while not ideal is not too bad if you just make a habit of putting it in the dock every night before going to bed, 100% again next morning for sure. You could even make a simple reminder for that with what I explained above :slight_smile:

As an extra shoutout;
I dont care for Spotify music controls on the remote, as a phone can be the remote for that always.
But I do like to see what music is playing in whatever room. [APP][Pro] Spotify Connect (beta - ready for testers) works wonderfully for that using the devices and groups when using Google Nest Hub (mini, max and chromecast audio) so thanks again @pendojoshua

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More than welcome! And thanks for tagging me he, promising product that I might add to our smart home!

/Edit: bit heavy on the price tho. Might just stick to my non-used-lying-somewhere-in-dust-covered-ipad I bought for this case, haha.

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It is a bit price heavy, I just oogled it with a colleague when it comes to retail. For what it is worth; Kickstarter price was 200 euro less. Worth it well … it depends totally on your use case etc.

For now; it’s a great remote, with still some issues.

  • Wifi/wake issues. This is being looked into.
  • Software feels a bit clunky on some fronts. (hard to describe without going into quite somethings)
  • Some parts ui/ux wise should be looked into (still beta web config though)

But putting that aside; I think it really is or atl east can become the Harmony Elite killer for me.
I am running it as the daily driver and the Harmony has been boxed. That in itself speaks volumes.

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Day two with the Remote 3, and sorry, I have to be honest here, this device is utterly terrible! Hardware is all good, but integrations are awful.

I’ve setup the Unfolded app in Homey, I can get my devices added, all works fine. There’s a UI / functionality issues and discrepancies all over the place, it’s not user friendly at all. No way I can give this to my wife.

Homey IR devices aren’t recognised as devices. why would I use them? Well the remote 3 doesn’t have my device in its IR database!

Flows, just can’t get them to work at all. As IR devices aren’t recognised, I thought, fine I’ll create a flow with “channel up” and”channel down”. So I have a “when” card with “channel up” and that fires the IR device channel up (image) Doesn’t appear in the remote. I’ve restarted the remote, restarted Homey, removed the integration and app and added again. I’ve waited overnight, nothing.

Right now, I’m seeing a very useless and expensive piece of junk

Any suggestions before this gets thrown in the bin?

If there is no (community) IP integration available for your device (check the Unfolded Circle Discord server) and you cannot control your device with the remote via Bluetooth (as a Bluetooth keyboard), then:

  • You have the option to learn the missing IR codes (via the dock),
  • Download them from the Global Cache database, or
  • Check the Unfolded Circle community forum or Discord server: other users might have shared their IR codes.

There’s a bug in the Homey Unfolded Circle app. The creator Niels de Klerk is aware of this bug: only advanced flows created in the Homey web app (flow.homey.app) are visible in the remote. Normal flows that you create in the Homey app are NOT visible.

IR codes can be downloaded from Global Caché for almost all devices. I described how to do this over here.

Don’t give up yet, my wife loves the remote.

And yes, it is not yet userfriendly - but if you can get homey to work, you should be able to program the remote to your wishes.

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Thanks both, not giving up!

I did look at the IR codes and download but for some reason they aren’t working. Luckily, there just been an integration publish (LG Horizon) so I’m looking to use that instead. Denon integration also caused headache as the Homey version uses telnet, and mine only supports one telnet session, and again the ir codes don’t work, so going to have to do the same. Same with LG TV (Webos integration constantly fails) so back to ir .

I’ve figured out the standard vs advanced! So switched and they are not working. Going to see if I can use those for Denon and LG instead, lots to experiment with.

I suppose it’s just a long slog, and not very friendly towards non-tech users at this point. I had waited and not bought the remote 2 hoping that things would have matured, but I suspect still not there.

Really has soooo much potential.

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To anybody to be able to help you in any way, you need to be more specific about what you are trying to accomplish with what devices. And that is not me trying to be condescending or anything really, I get that this remote still has it’s learning curve.

Also please reach out on their Discord, lot’s of lovely people who can and will help out.

As I can tell from your screenshot you are using a Virgin Mediabox (of sorts) and IIRC correctly they are working on a custom integration for that. See Discord

Advanced flows have a quirk currently and don’t work with the homey app.

Yes software wise; it really needs some work but once you get how it all works (which took me roughly 3-4 hours of really fiddling with it), I have not found anything I can’t get done with it.

But and don’t get me wrong, software wise it has to step up to garner more of a following from the masses. Because people just like the ease of something that works without spending a bit of a grind.

FYI: The latest test version of the Unfolded Circle app for Homey adds support for sensors and various additional device types.

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Ow neat totally missed there was a test version. Going to be running that as Im also on beta at the UC end.

Yes, me too. I understand that the developer is planning a big update soon, with additional flowcards to activate actions on the remote and more options to monitor the status of the remote and dock. I think, some of those features are already available for Home Assistant users.

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Nice, yeah for the past months I have actually been using GET calls to the dock/remote to activate things etc. based on Google Nest voice calls. It’s a bit cumbersome to setup but also fun to understand how it works.

Perhaps what you mention will make this more feasible for people not into debugging GET / API calls.
Please if you wouldn’t mind keep us all posted if something happens in that regard.

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FYI - New test version 2.0.0 available with lots of new features:

Haven’t figured out yet how to connect the Dock 3 as the app asks for a PIN, while the dock only has a password.

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Default PIN for the dock is 0000

Have you figured out how to activate voice transcript?

Yes, but 0000 does not work :thinking:. I did set a password when I originally set up the dock, but that is longer than 4 digits and the UC app asks for a 4 digit token. Note that if I change the password to a 4 digit password, the UC app still says it’s the incorrect token. Not sure how to proceed.

I haven’t used voice transcription (I am not using voice commands on the remote). Note that the UC app’s settings window contains instructions on how to set up voice transcription. Not sure whether that is helpful for your usecase.

you need to go to the app configuration. as both the remote nor homey is goodenough to transcribe audio you will need a 3rd party solution. Under the STT section I made a list of supported integrations. including a local one and a GDPR safe solution. haven’t tested them all.

On the R3 side you need to add a integration and the voice one will show up. you can add this to the R3. You need to enable the mic in settings of R3 and select the voice integration to use. hope this helps

in homey the App now has two then cards. one is the voice card.

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Thanks for pointing this out to me, I will make a fix before making the 2.0.0 version “live“

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