Volumio 3 and IR Remote Control

[mengrie]

I just upgraded to Volumio 3. Therefor I had to reflash the SD card of my Pi as OTA did not work. Reconfiguring the whole I wanted to install the IR Remote Control plugin to allow me to use my JustBoom IR remote control. However I can no longer find this plugin in the list available (user interface nor system hardware). What I am missing here or is there a new way to get this working again?

[gvolt]

The IR Controller plugin is still pending for approval:

[PLUGIN] IR Remote Controller feedback thread

Is the IR remote controller plugin ready for volumio 3? I would like to know before I hit the v2 to v3 upgrade button since this plugin is key to volumio integrating with my hometheater setup.

You can follow the status of plugins for Volumio 3 here.

[rajiv.kumar1984]

Thanks gvolt but is there a way presently to use the remote feature with Volumio player…kindly suggest

[eveready]

I used the JB remote as well prior to version 3. Is there any ETA on when this will become available?

[gvolt]

Not to my knowledge. Sadly plugin approval seems to have stalled overall. If need be, you can install the plugin manually. @ashthespy was so kind to post a .zip package made from the current PR on GitHub: [PLUGIN] IR Remote Controller feedback thread - #269 by ashthespy

[eveready]

Thanks! This actually did work. Here is what should work for those wanting this plugin also (steps adapted from michael8166):
(I am doing this from a Windows PC so I unzipped the file on the PC first using 7zip)

• Downloaded from here (Per ashthespy):
  https://community.volumio.com/uploads/short-url/xWzEWvQ0cYeH8YwGhctGfSLpYs3.zip

• Copy the unzipped folder to the “Internal Storage” share on the Volumio

• SSH to the Volumio

• I used the following commands (if anything is different with your configuration you may need to adjust accordingly):

sudo mv /mnt/INTERNAL/ir_controller_3.4.7/ /home/volumio/
cd ~/ir_controller_3.4.7
sudo ./install.sh
sudo volumio plugin install
CTRL-C

I then restarted Volumio using the web GUI. The plugin should then show up under installed plugins.

Hope this helps!

[gvolt]

@eveready

sudo ./install.sh

This is not necessary: “install.sh” is executed automatically when running “volumio plugin install”.

@eveready

sudo volumio plugin install

IIRC it is not recommended to use “sudo” when running “volumio plugin install”.

After connecting to Volumio via SSH I would do something like the following to download the .zip file ashthespy has uploaded and install the plugin manually:

curl -L https://community.volumio.com/uploads/short-url/xWzEWvQ0cYeH8YwGhctGfSLpYs3.zip -o ir_controller.zip

mkdir ir_controller_3.4.7

miniunzip ir_controller.zip -d ir_controller_3.4.7

cd ir_controller_3.4.7

volumio plugin install

After the installation has finished press Ctrl-c.

[eveready]

Thought I already responded… gvolt, just tried your steps above and they do work like a charm!

Thanks for the corrections on sudo.

[Marko]

Which platforms are supported by this plugin?

I got old ODROID C2. This SBC has built in IR receiver. After installing ir remote plugin I tried to run irrecord command to create configuration for my remote. It didn’t work and after a bit of research I discovered that no /dev/lirc0 exists nor meson-ir module is not loaded. Lircd service is actually running and so is irexec service. I read index.js to see what this plugin does and in theory it should work because there are switch statements with cases for various ODROID models. Also I found regex expressions for adding meson-ir and /dev/lirc0.

I uninstalled ir remote plugin and manually installed lirc. Edited configuration as suggested in ODROID wiki. When I started lircd service both /dev/lirc0 and meson-ir were present.

[gvolt]

Was “meson-ir” present in your system by default or did you have to install it?

Was the “meson-ir” module loaded when you tried the plugin?

Could you post the content of your working “lirc_options.conf”?

[Marko]

At default state, no lirc and ir remote plugin installed, lsmod didn’t show me loaded meson-ir module.

After installing plugin I checked if /dev/lirc0 and meson-ir were present. I checked because I have old amino stb remote control that hasn’t profile available. Irrecord complained about missing /dev/lirc0.

After that I uninstalled plugin, rebooted system and manually installed lirc by followed instructions from ODROID wiki. Then I got both /dev/lirc0 and meson-ir loaded. I tested mode2 and it registers button presses from my remote. Creating profile for my remote wasn’t successful, but this is out of scope right now.

I’m writing this and do testing at same time. I discovered why meson-ir module wan’t loaded, lirc_options.conf had [modeinit] commented out. After I manually added:

[modinit]
code = /sbin/modprobe meson-ir

Then after restart meson-ir was loaded and /dev/lirc0 was present.

[gvolt]

@Marko

After I manually added:
…

Thanks for reporting. That’s what I suspected. I will do a PR for new version of the plugin ASAP which will reflect this finding.

[Marko]

No need to rush. ODROID C2 was only for testing, because it has built-in ir receiver. This machine is a bit too much underpowered for Volumio. It is maxed out at 96 kHz flac files played from nas through USB dac.

My friend wants me to add IR remote for his RPi based Volumio box but Pi doesn’t have built-in IR receiver, so for testing purposes old C2 did well.

[leigh_telles]

I see that u used the JustBoom remote on Volumio 3, which i have also a JustBoom ir remote and have Volumio 3. So, can u used the controller to play songs, play pause and more.