Record and play back IR remote sequence

Visit

and for general info and/or get a copy of the "Raspberry Pi User Guide" for general info about setup, software and hardware interfacing.

If you have a suitable PC running Linux or a Windows box plus an SSH package, e.g. PuTTY and/or an Xterm package you can run a Pi model B headless by connecting it to your local LAN via Ethernet rather than using a directly attached keyboard, mouse and screen. I use mine that way, accessing it from whichever Linux box I'm sitting at. If you go that way all you'll need is the model B Pi, some Ethernet cable, a good USB wall wart (at least 1 amp, 2.1 is better) with micro-USB plug, an SD card (at least 4GB) and a case of some sort for the Pi - I like the Wafer case because it exposes all the RPi's connectors while stopping the Pi from getting shorted out by putting it on something metallic or dropping stuff on it. The RPi usually runs Debian Linux and would typically be programmed in C or Python for the sort of thing you want to do. The C compilation system is the usual Linux toolset (GNU compiler and friends) plus some hardware- specific libraries you'd use to access the GPIO pins. There are a number of Python packages that provide similar GPIO access for Python.

You may also want one of the GPIO prototyping boards to provide a pluggable interface to the GPIO pins.

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martin@   | Martin Gregorie 
gregorie. | Essex, UK 
org       |

Software wise, I'd probably start by seeing if lirc and irrecord are available on the Pi. As for hardware, there are plenty of articles on the internet about building IR interfaces for lirc.

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  ???????????????  -- JimP.

[snip]

There's a semi-standard bare-bones IR receiver involving attaching a module directly to the GPIO pins. I use it for controlling XBMC and I think many others do too. Coupled with an IR LED attached to one of the GPIOs, I think it could do just what you want with the minimum of code.

has the details.

"lirc"

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For a good time: install ntp

Thanks to everyone for the hints and tips.

I am now able to control my TV with the PI using lirc.

While that confirms that I can send and receive IR signals, the Mitsubishi heat pump remote is not like most remotes.

Most IR remotes send one code for each button. The heat pump remote is very different. It has a display on it that shows various settings, such as temperature, fan speed and several other settings.

As a result, this remote sends its entire configuration each time a button is pressed. It also sends a checksum. This is a sequence of a couple hundred bytes.

lirc is simply too clever for this type of remote. It makes too many assumptions, and it is not able to figure out what to do with this signal.

What I need, is to simply blindly record the entire sequence, store it in a file, and then replay it from the command line using cron or SSH.

Is there a way to do that?

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RoRo