One of the most automated areas of my home is my home theater. This uses the (sadly defunct) Harmony Hub, which allows both network and IR control of devices and also reports its status to home assistant. This means that I can turn on the projector, set up the remote, turn off the lights, and set up audio either from the remote itself or from network control. Unfortunately, my motorized projector screen uses a 433MHz RF remote, which is not something the Harmony has hardware for. I wanted the screen to drop when I start watching and roll back up when I power everything off.
Fixing this is pretty easy; a very simple Raspberry Pi shield allows for RF transmit, a script captures what the screen remote sends for up/down, and AppDaemon listens for changes to state from the Harmony
# Some error handling and logging removed for readability
def harmony_hub_changed(self, entity, attribute, old, new, kwargs):
current_activity = self.get_state(self.harmony_hub, attribute="current_activity")
if current_activity != "PowerOff":
self.log(f"Harmony hub activity detected: {current_activity}, lowering screen", level="INFO")
self.screen_down()
else:
self.log("Harmony hub powered off, raising screen", level="INFO")
self.screen_up()
def screen_down(self):
# Turn on screen switch twice with delay, to match remote behavior
self.call_service("switch/turn_on", entity_id=self.screen_switch)
self.run_in(self.screen_delay_callback, self.screen_delay / 1000.0)
def screen_up(self):
# Turn off screen switch twice with delay, to match remote behavior
self.call_service("switch/turn_off", entity_id=self.screen_switch)
self.run_in(self.screen_delay_callback_off, self.screen_delay / 1000.0)
switch:
- platform: rpi_rf
gpio: 17
switches:
screen:
code_on: 12025732
code_off: 12025729
At the moment, this uses a custom rpi_rf component for HA, which is a holdover from a previous integration which did not use AppDaemon. Eventually, I’ll move the RF code directly into AppDaemon as well (or rebuild on top of an ESP32 running ESPHome).