I’m just getting started investigating open remote and have a couple of design/functionality questions.
Here’s what I’m trying to accomplish: I have a Sony STR-DA3100ES receiver that has powered zone 3 connected to speakers in my master bathroom. The STR-DA3100ES has an RS-232 port and I’ve found the codes to control zone 3 with it.
My question is are there wall plates of some kind that can be used to interface with openremote. I basically would like a wall plate in the bathroom that has buttons for Power, Volume Up, Volume Down, Source and FM Preset. Is there a way to have such a wall plate send the signal to a PC via IR or network or ? that would then signal Open Remote to perform that function on the STR-DA3100ES via the RS-232 port?
Additionally to, or possibly in lieu of the wall plate, is there a way to interface with open remote via Amazon Alexa. Basically to have an Amazon Echo Dot sitting in the bathroom and be able to provide voice commands which are relayed to Open Remote? I suspect this would require an Alexa Skill. Does such a thing currently exist?
Hope all of this made sense. I am really just starting to investigate Open Remote but it seems if I could accomplish this it would be less clunky than the current solutions of IR relays and multiple devices.
I use an old android phone to do something similar with my Yamaha AVR. Althoguh I could never find the RS232 commands ( the user manual says it supports commands, just wont say what they are. Need to be a authorized distributor or service person i guess!!). So instead I use the ethernet connected IR transmitter supported by openremote which sits in front of the AVR. I use the IRtrans brand(see details on openremote.com). works well.
About interfacing OpenRemote with Alexa, it is quite simple and you don’t need any special Alexa Skill. All you need is HA Bridge which emulates Philips Hue and sends UDP messages to OpenRemote which can be received by an udpl sensor. I’m doing this since more than a year and I don’t remember a time when I had to pull an app to switch things. Alexa does it perfectly.
If you already have HA bridge installed then you already are emulating a Philips Hue. Create a device there and when you do “Alexa, discover devices” it should appear as a new hue device. Each hue device has on/off/set commands which you can configure in the HA bridge to do an HTTP call or for our purpose send an UDP packet. This packet can be received by an UDP sensor in the OpenRemote and passed to rules as in the WiKi page you’ve found. For example I have a “Home Cinema” device defined in the HA Bridge. When I say “Alexa, switch on home cinema” generate an UDP packet with “haswitchon” string (this is an example, you can define any string in the HA bridge). This string is received by a rule in OpenRemote which executes commands to switch on my TV and Bose Home Cinema. When I say “Alexa, set home cinema to 25” then it sets Bose volume to 25. When I say “Alexa, set TV to 25” then it sets channel 25 on my TV because I’ve defined another device in the HA bridge which is called “TV” of course. Hope this helps.