Infrared (IR) Transmitter

Volumio Development Suggest a feature
1

Would be great to have an IR transmitter feature so that I can turn my audio system on and off thru the Volumio app or via the web page!

2

Hi dirtbiker1824,

IR is on the roadmap for Volumio, so it will eventually be a feature.
We may take it on very soon!
I will post on here when we start working on it so you can stay updated if you like.

Cheers,
Cris

3

Hi there,

I wanted to jump in and second this request. I have an array of Polk in-ceiling speakers and need a lot of power to drive them, but I donā€™t want to leave my receivers (located in an AV closet) powered 24/7. I need them to power up & down as needed and to adjust volume remotely from the app.

Currently Iā€™m doing this with Logitech Squeezebox players (SB3) with the IR Blaster plugin and it works great, but the hardware is really old now and the players are starting to fail one by one. I want to get a new whole house audio solution up and running with Raspberry PIs soonish.

Iā€™ve ticked the ā€œnotify me when a reply is postedā€ box so Iā€™ll anxiously await your response, Cris.

Thank you!

4

Hi rpdubz,

Iā€™m sorry for the long wait.

What exactly is your request? You would like to be able to toggle the IR receivers on/off?

Best,
Cris

5

Iā€™d like to be able to send IR signals to my amplifier. Power control (on/off) and volume (up/down).

6

Well, the volume control should already be implemented.
As far as turning the amp on/off, thatā€™s not really something that Volumio can do directly.
One way I could imagine that is by using a relay on the ampā€™s supply, and controlling that with the rpiā€™s GPIO.
If thatā€™s what you want and need, I could try making a plugin for that.
You will need some electronics knowledge to set it up.

Is that it? Did I get it right? :smiley:

Let me know!

7

Hi Cris,

When you say the volume control has already been implemented, do you mean that Volumio can send infrared signals to my amplifier to turn the amplifierā€™s volume up and down? Can you point me to some documentation that would help me hook an IR transmitter up to the rpi and configure the correct IR codes within Volumio?

I do have electronics knowledge, though a relay for power control is not going to work. When these amplifiers power up, they go into a standby state. They need an infrared signal to come out of standby. If Volumio can send IR codes through an infrared emitter for volume control, it should be pretty easy to send power up/down codes too. Maybe a simple plugin where I can assign and label buttons that execute shell scripts on the client rpi? Then I can use lirc to send the correct IR command directly from within the Volumio interface?

8

Ok, now I understand what you mean.
No, in that sense, there is no plugin for that.
But letā€™s talk about it, I can make a plugin that will execute shell scripts on command. I can also make it work with the existing IR plugin so as to call a shell script when a particular button is pressed on your remote.
Is this all?

Iā€™ll look into it as soon as I have 2 free minutes.
I will keep you updated.

9

Iā€™d like to see this implemented as well. I could probably figure out a python script or something to handle the ir transmitter, but I donā€™t know enough about the gui to implement a page. Maybe I could figure it out, but I bet it would take someone who knows what theyā€™re doing 1/50th of the time.

10

I would like to help where I can get this implemented. I am going to work to build this circuit and software. We could hopefully make an api call or script it to handle volume up and down as well as power off/on. The software and universal side should help it work for a large range of devices.

alexba.in/blog/2013/01/06/settin ā€¦ spberrypi/

11

I finally got all the parts I needed and was able to get this setup and working this afternoon. I can now send IR commands to my amp from the pi using command line. Now if we could somehow get help implementing it into the UI we would be golden.

idea:
-add an option in settings to change volume settings to LIRC
-create fields under there to enter remote name and button name
-have volume up and down execute the commands below
-add amp power button to the UI in some location and have it execute the command below.

Here are the commands I can use to send IR

syntax is: irsend SEND_ONCE ā€œRemoteNameā€ ā€œButtonNameā€
irsend SEND_ONCE onkyo KEY_POWER
irsend SEND_ONCE onkyo KEY_VOLUMEUP
irsend SEND_ONCE onkyo KEY_VOLUMEDOWN

Something like this should get us started then we can work on tweaks for the other LIRC options. We may be able to implement the continuous start-stop feature.

irsend SEND_START onkyo KEY_VOLUMEUP
irsend SEND_STOP onkyo KEY_VOLUMEUP
irsend SEND_START onkyo KEY_VOLUMEDOWN
irsend SEND_STOP onkyo KEY_VOLUMEDOWN

12

Hi DShearon,

Has any progress been made since your last post? Iā€™m looking for this exact solution to be implemented into Volumio.
What IR transmitter have you installed on your PI?

Thanks

13

Hereā€™s a post I found from 2.5 years ago which has a nice implementation (including UI):
https://volumio.org/forum/volumio-blaster-for-amp-control-t3746.html#p49354

14

Hi pintea

Did you progress on this topic? I would also love to be able to transmit IR signals: volume up/down and power on/off/toggle to my amplifier.

Would make Volumio a use-case for me.

Br anders

15

Hi,

I implemented a little plugin which transmits IR-Codes when the volume is changed in Volumio.
But to keep the overhead in Volumio as small as possible, I am using an additional Arduino Nano which is connected via USB to the Pi. I use this to control the volume of my DAC.
Would that help you?

Best regards,
Michael

1 Like
16

Sounds very interesting. What hardware do you use for the Volumio device? And which IR blaster should I get? Would it run on a single RPi?

Br anders

17

I am using a general IR-Blaster like this:

and this Arduino:

It will run on a single RPi, I am using a Raspi 4 for Volumio and the Arduino is connected via USB to the pi. The IR-Blaster is connected to the Arduino. No more components needed.

The Plugin I wrote is up to now only serving my special needs, so it definitely needs to be adjusted to a more general approach.

The Plugin works like this:
In the settings for the plugin, a char is defined for the command of volume up and another char for volume down. Everytime the volume changes, the char (e.g. ā€œ+ā€ or ā€œ-ā€) is written to the serial port where the Arduino is connected to.

The sketch on the Arduino listens on the serial port and when a char is sent, which is connected to an IR-Command, the IR-Command is sent to the blaster.

I can share the code if you like, but as I said, it will need to be adjusted to suit your needs.

18

I would love to give it a try. Please do share. I need to find the IR codes. I havenā€™t been successful. But I guess I can detect then with a receiver and lirc.

Thanks

19

You can also use the Arduino to read the codes you want to use, as long as you still have the remote control of your amp.
Just connect a cheap IR-Receiver to the Arduino. That what I did to get the codes I needed.
Have a look here:

For my codes, I will setup a github repo and share the link when it is done.

1 Like
20

Thanks. I think the codes to my Hegel amp are universal for that brand. I have the RC-5 codes and they should be convertible to HEX. Otherwise I will buy a IR receiver. Great if you could make a git.