They Finally Made a Smart Remote with Local HTTP Device Control - Sofabaton X1S!

In this video we take a look at the Sofabaton X1S Smart Remote control which has just been silently updated with a feature allowing it to control devices over your local network using a simple HTTP API interface! This is something I've been searching for for so long to allow me completely local control of my Home Assistant & Node-RED based smart home from physical remote controls from around the house.

Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
04:04 - Hardware Tour
10:13 - App Setup & Custom HTTP Commands
33:01 - Demonstration
40:09 - Home Assistant & Node-RED API Setup
48:42 - Conclusion

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[andyc]

Another great video, thanks for sharing!

I use a Raspberry Pi Zero W in each room with a USB IR interface and a One For All remote. I hide the Pi behind the TV and just have the IR receiver at the front of the TV. The remote can then control the TV or other IR devices directly. The Pi is connected to my network & runs LIRC. IR commands can then be received by LIRC on the Pi, which can then trigger scripts to control HomeAssistant, issue WoL packets, turn lights on, control other IP devices etc as required. The Pi can also interact with the TV via IP or HDMI with the Pi's cec-client software. Total cost is less that £30 for the parts required. I use a Pi image I built with a read only file system, so I'm not worried about power outages etc.

As there is Pi with each TV, CEC control works well as the Pi can tell the status of the TV before it issues any CEC command back to the TV, so power toggling isn't an issue. Complex macros are easy, and they can also retrieve any HomeAssistant sensor for macro input. My Pis all sync their configs, so I only have to change a single Pi to update them all.

One For All remotes have a JP1 connector in the battery compartment, so with a £2 cable and the RemoteMaster software I can program one remote and copy to other remotes easily.

My Pis are on a separate network to HomeAssistant and I've not had any issues with a firewall in-between them so far.

[__Ben]

I can't believe they're not publicizing this feature more -- it seems pretty decent despite the limitations in how long it takes to setup

[elminster]

I will no longer buy products that require an unnecessary logon account to function.

[JessicaFEREM]

They added the login thing for no reason. The U1 I had didn't require me to login for years and all of the sudden I'm forced too. Kinda paved about that tbh

[Lagittaja]

36:15 As you said, reasonable latency is to be expected considering what's happening here. It's fairly easy to adapt to latency. Within reason of course. But what's way, way more important is that the input is received and processed. Whatever the latency, as long as it eventually happens, that's fine.
How does your system handle in that regard, through testing have you encountered any dropped input commands? Example pressed up four times but only three ends up happening.

[mark_da_it_guy]

Once again the power of Node-Red is astonishing.

I’ve been on the hunt for this since Logitech all but killed the Harmony ecosystem. I even have the Harmony Keyboard. A full sized qwerty wirelessly linked to the hub for text entry on just about any screen.

My Sofa baton is being delivered tomorrow.

[Lagittaja]

28:00 That's super cool if you're able to launch certain apps on an CCwGTV for example and combine that with other commands? My use case for that would be to also change the receiver volume to something sensible.
I've set up my receiver to default to -45dB on power on as that's a reasonably quiet volume for my most used input source which is an HTPC. But it is not too loud for the receivers own internet radio thing.
Then when I watch something through the HTPC I often end up somewhere between -35dB and -27.5dB for example.
But streaming (thru Chromecast), different platforms have different volumes. MAX is a good example, I have to crank the volume to somewhere in the neighbourhood of -20dB to -10dB. Prime Video, Netflix etc all have slightly different full scale volume I think is the correct term.
Sure, the receiver has source volume adjustment but as the Chromecast is the single source I do my streaming through, it's not that useful.

[timo]

Have you had a look at unfolded circle? I've been using their remote 2 for about 2 years and it's been great!

[muddyland]

I bought one of each of these for the local emulated Roku support, they have worked great for my needs (I have buttons to turn off lights in my theater, or set modes in Home Assistant). They are very slick remotes for the money. Coming from a Logitech Harmony remote, these work a ton better, but the software needs some improvement.

[fabian]

I'm guessing that doing the DNS lookup while adding the URL lowers the latency when performing the action. Needing to wait for an unresponsive DNS server might be a nuisance.

If you need to use a "virtual host" you should be able to add the HTTP/1.1 Host header in the Additional Headers field.

Compared to the Logitech Harmony Companion its a shame there is no direct button for lightning control.

[tcallumg]

I am going to look at U Control from HDAnywhere at some point still got my 5 harmony elites going strong

[MrSkylne]

Great review! I spotted the find my remote option in the settings, do you think there's any way to access this command from home assistant? Or would it be possible to ask google or alexa where the remote is, so it starts making noise?

[garytill]

I got around the Power on/off issue by removing all power on/off commands from the activities and only using my existing Node-Red power management logic for that, I have a set of functions that track the state of the TV/Audio/Source and power commands are sent only as required, so switching activities only sends the HTTP GET command to node-red to select that source and set up the room for that mode if a device is off, it will turn it on, but it wont turn anything off when switching activities in my case. then the main off button on the remote only sends a master power off command to Node-Red that shuts off the room. all of my matrix sources stay on (and get power cycled occasionally by smart outlets) only the local sources in that room get turned on and off regularly.

I also previously had a Hisense Vidaa TV and when the MQTT hacked integration was broken by a software update I was still able to get full on/off logic control with a power meter to detect if the TV was on, so with only a basic power toggle IR command I still had full power state tracking and it never got out of sync.

[distinctdipole]

Really useful remote. Thanks for a video demonstrating it.

PS. They spelled "creat" correctly: they're obviously C programmers 😂

[dave_s_vids]

I was super excited when I saw this in my feed as I'm really worried that when my Harmony Elite dies I wouldn't have anything to replace it... sadly this has the play/pause button at the bottom like the Logitech touch - why???? The play/pause placement on the Elite is absolutely perfect and having it at the bottom is terrible for ergonomics 😢

[GaryBarclay]

The fact they haven't moved that back button after all the online whining about it, speaks volumns.

[antikommunistischaktion]

Me when I buy a physical remote to control my *arr suite

[simongardner]

Very cool, but what happens when you’re watching the Apple TV and someone else wants to watch a different app on it in another room?! 😂. Maybe a different use case, but we either have Apple TV’s for each TV or the newer TVs come with Apple TV+ as an app, which is the most common use in our house.

[kmcat]

Why does the first 10sec of this video look like hes playing a piano
Also stop using GET as it more susceptible to CSRF

[JessicaFEREM]

If you use a USB C to a adapter and an A to C adapter together it bypasses the charger not working on these devices.