esp8266_milight_hub VS IRremoteESP8266

So, I have a few proprietary RF smart lights all around the house. I control these using an ESP project I found in Home Assistant. The problem I'm running into is kids turning off the lights from the switches. I figured the solution would be running relay switches for the smart lights since I want to install some for the dumb lights either way. I read up somewhere that you can run some relays in something called decoupled/detached mode, which allows them to send their state to home assistant, which can toggle the smart bulb.

Using this hub, they work well for controlling WLED (or non WLED) lights, but do take a bit of configuring getting all the buttons configured.

Alternatively, you can DIY a MiLight hub that connects to HA via MQTT, and use any of the MiBoxer/MiLight remotes if they fit your needs.

The easy option is to just get a Zwave or Zigbee remote. With a hub running Zigbee2MQTT or Zwave2MQTT, you can translate the button presses to MQTT and trigger your Tasmota devices. Alternatively, you could set up a Milight hub (which also translates button presses to MQTT topics) and use any of the commercially available Milight remotes as inputs.

The controller puck uses a 2.4GHz RF signal to control the light. I'm just guessing, but I would imagine you should be able to pick up the RF signal from a Milight hub like this. (I use a few Milight RF remotes connected to a DIY hub to control lights through HA.)

(These do require a 2.4GHz RF gateway. You can buy the standalone gateway, build your own, or buy a premade version.)

Anyone have any suggestions? I would prefer Zwave or 433MHz RF based (I have dongles for both attached to my HA box), but open to Wifi or Zigbee for the right solution. Anything cloud based is a hard pass. Same with BT, unless there is a cheap hub, or something I can DIY. (I already have a few ESP32 BT proxies running Tasmota or ESPHome.) IR is less than ideal due to line-of-sight restrictions. I was thinking about setting up this on an ESP8266, paired with one of these Milight remotes, but before putting in an AliExpress order and waiting weeks for delivery, does anybody have any other suggestions? Would this or this work with my 433MHz SDR running RTL_433? The giant antennas were a little off-putting.

I also looked at milight hub with an esp board.

If someone could specifically confirm/deny that the Gledopto bridge works with White bulbs would be great. People have created custom controllers for the White bulbs/remotes (e.g., here) - so I assume the protocol is known or the same.

Before binning off the Milight controller perhaps try this open source hub: https://github.com/sidoh/esp8266_milight_hub

Not built, but designed a widget with a rest api on a wifi endpoint on one side and an IR led on the other to automate my dumb a/c unit. There was already a library to emulate the exact IR remote control,

https://github.com/crankyoldgit/IRremoteESP8266/tree/master/...

I am planning to do this soon(TM).

Probably starting with ESPHome to control my heat pumps over IR.

The remote works but I forget to turn it off when not in one of the rooms, and it can't do smarts like keeping temperatures in desired bounds.

An ESP32 running ESPHome with high power IR LED, a presence sensor, temperature sensor, and some pre-built library to control heat pumps[1]. it looks like it should be fairly simple to implement with Home assistant.

Now if I could only disable the beep from the heat pumps receiving commands.

I would like to do smarter lighting, but the lack of decent smart light switches that support local control and are also licenced for use in AU are a blocker there.

[1] https://github.com/crankyoldgit/IRremoteESP8266/wiki#ir-send...

ThermTerm solves all the problems I've had with these physical controls, while integrating the heat pumps into Home Assistant via MQTT. Additional sensors pipe temperature, humidity and light data, for statistics and automation. Out of the box, ThermTerm supports Mitsubishi's infrared protocol, since that's the system I have. Thanks to integration with IRRemoteESP8266, you can make ThermTerm work with your own heat pumps by writing a few lines of adaptor code.

This library has the IR codes defined for tons of heat pumps. The only thing about node red is that it uses Java to build the UI on the webserver. If your already familiar with Java then no big deal, but it's just one more syntax to learn lol.

I used this library with a D1 mini. I then use this to put in my dashboard There are some examples one is a receiver code that you can get your codes, they also have a lot of ACs codes already. There is also an IRServer example that integrates with MQTT and has some stuff to put in your configuration.yaml so you can get it into HA easily I used this for 6 Samsung ACs, LG Dryer, some basic fans with IR. Samsung is the same each command is like all commands in one on, temp, etc. It has all this built in. I think if you have a IR receiver on your esp board and it will sometimes pick up the commands sent by the regular remote so if someone else uses the dumb remote it will update in HA. It's not perfect but it works pretty well. you can get all in one boards on ali express if you search iresp8255 they have transmitters and receivers.

I have tried https://github.com/Arduino-IRremote/Arduino-IRremote and https://github.com/crankyoldgit/IRremoteESP8266, both cause the same error.

First, try to remove the resistor(i was made an ir remote using the top circuit for ir sender). check the components, maybe one of them are dead. Second, check the gpio and config. Third, maybe the problem is the code. Maybe you should try the original IRRemoteESP8266 library first: You should checkout the original esp8266 ir remote library first: https://github.com/crankyoldgit/IRremoteESP8266 checkout my project: https://github.com/KD-MM2/MHI-AirCon-ESP8266/blob/main/Ver-1_Webserver_IRRemote/TurnOnMitsubishiHeavyAc.ino

I was able to finally read one of my remote codes that my other receiver couldn't with the flipper. I then used this library with a D1 mini.

My AC is fujitsu and I found library to control: https://github.com/crankyoldgit/IRremoteESP8266/blob/master/src/ir_Fujitsu.cpp

If it has a remote you can try to control it with an ESP32 with an extra infrared led. Check if it is supported by this library. Some coding would be needed.