Maybe you’ve read the description of my home entertainment network. Some of you wanted to know how I configured the remote control thing. In part 1 I showed you how to remote control IR devices using iPhone running OpenRemote and Global Cache iTach WF2IR. After this guide you will be able to switch on/off a lamp using your iPhone/Android.
For this to work, I bought myself the Nexa PB-3 package (~$30)which enables you to switch on/off using the remote control they supply in the package:
Nexa uses RF signals rather than IR so it works through walls. Global Cache iTach WF2IR has 3 output ports to where you connect IR-blasters to send IR-signal, but they don’t have any device that can send RF signals but Sydia has the TX-433 which can. So you basically connect the TX-433 to one of the output ports on the WF2IR and supply the TX-433 with power. You can still connect another IR-blaster to the TX-433 so you will have both an IR and RF sender on this port.
In part 1 I showed you have to create a button which sends a “command” to the iTach. But that article showed you have to use iLearn.exe to learn an signal but with the above remote since it’s RF and the iTach only has an IR-learner, there is no way you can send an IR-signal so how do you know which command to send?
The Nexa Self Learning / Learning Code PB-3 works in that way that it select random codes each time they are configured so it automatically select one of of those some 16 million different codes. So it’s not like any other IR-device where the same button sends same command every time.
Luckily, the good guys over at Sydia has solved that for you. You just e-mail their support and they will send you as many RF codes you need. More info here.
So, when I received the codes I created one ON and one OFF button in Building Modeler for each configured the following way:
Then in UI Designer, I created buttons for each and assigned the command to the ON/OFF buttons:
Then I just saved, made sure the OpenRemote Controller on the server was synchronized with the updated version and then downloaded to the iPhone. Excellent – it works:
Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below.