ESP-01 Bridges The Gap Between IR And WiFi

[Emilio Ficara] dropped us a line recently about his efforts to drag his television and receiver kicking and screaming into the modern era. His TV is old enough that it needs an external tuner, which means it requires two separate remotes to properly channel surf. He wanted to simplify the situation, and figured that while he was at it he might as well make the whole thing controllable over WiFi.

To begin the project, [Emilio] had to capture the IR signals from the two remotes he wanted to emulate. He put together a quick little IR receiver out of parts he had in the junk bin which would connect up to his computer’s microphone port. He then used an open source IR protocol analyzer to capture the codes and decode them into hex values.

As a proof of concept he came up with a little device that combines an ESP-01 with an ATmega88. The ESP-01 runs a minimal web server that receives hex codes as URL query strings. These hex codes are then interpreted by the ATmega88 and sent out over the IR LED. [Emilio] notes that driving the IR LED directly off of the ATmega pin results in fairly low range of around one meter, but that’s good enough for his purposes. If you want to drive the IR LED with more power, you’ll need to add a transistor to do the switching.

Passing the hex code 0x0408 to turn off the TV

Now that he can decode the signals from his original remotes and transmit them over WiFi via his bridge device, he has all the groundwork he needs to come up with a streamlined home entertainment controller. A native application for his smartphone or perhaps a minimal web interface is the last piece of the puzzle.

This project reminds us of a similar attempt at controlling legacy IR devices from a smartphone via Bluetooth. If you’re looking for more information about wrangling IR signals from your microcontroller, this primer from 2013 is still a great look at the subject.

29 thoughts on “ESP-01 Bridges The Gap Between IR And WiFi

    1. I had the same thought. . . . and then I read the article.

      It seems he was limited to parts on hand, and he’d already worked out some specific IR protocols using the AVR, which he used as the project’s base. This is a quick hack, not an optimized, manufacture-ready product. I’m sure he’d be fine with someone making an all-ESP version.

    1. It’s a good idea. There is a problem for the timings, because I actually use the SBI I/O,#bit and CBI I/O,#bit instructions (Set or Clear I/O BIT). Both of them take 2 machine cycles to execute, while for contemporary output on multiple pins I must use the OUT I/O, R instruction that only takes 1 machine cycle,.. but I can repeat it 2 times, so no problem :) There is another problem with the OUT instruction: I must read the status of the port in a register prior to send the data stream and restore it at the end (other pins on the port must NOT be changed by IR procedure), but this isn’t difficult to achieve. At the moment, just ’cause the firmware is firmly closed (it was just a proof of concept) I will simply add a PNP transistor to get all the power I need. I will use a PNP ’cause the output is active low. Anyway, I appreciated your “quick and dirty” solution. Bye.

      1. LIRC can also be configured as an IR Blaster. I used to use this so I could push power on my Hauppauge remote and LIRC would see the signal and then turn around and send the power signal to my tv from the IR blaster part.

  1. > His TV is old enough that it needs an external tuner, ”

    “…Just old enough…” and I could let it pass. My 1955 TV had a tuner as did some up to 2005 or 10. Then digital with better viewing came out… Better if you were less than 50 miles away instead of less than 70. Or if you could (& would) pony up a ridiiculous Mount of money for “cable.” I feel as if the author is 20 and with no sense of some of the readership having seen the moon landing. Sorry… it must be time fir my nap… or perhaps, yours.

  2. I laugh every time i see an ESP tied to the Arduino. You do know that the ESP can act just like an Arduino and is multiple times more powerful right? You can even code for the thing in the Arduino IDE and upload code from the Arduino IDE straight into the ESP. Just add the ESP to the IDE using the boards manager.

  3. To those saying that it can be done from the esp, isn’t that above module just a WiFi-serial bridge, so lacks the gpio pins to get it done, and makes it a tonne harder to set up? This looks like a great “this is what I had” job, and a damn sight tidier than my attempts. (I assume that from the dip atmega8, who buys those now with cheap nano / micro clones, or even bluepill / esp boards)

    Awesome project g

    1. The ESP8266 has far more IO than an Arduino. The particular ESP module he is using does only have 2GPIO pins available. Look up the nodemcu for a better ESP8266 module that brings out all of the IO pins.

      Even in the case of his project, it is only needing a single GPIO for the IR LED. The module he is using could do it.

      As for using the ESP for other uses than its default wifi bridge mode. All you gotta do is hook up its serial to a USB to serial adapter, load up the arduino IDE, select the ESP8266 board in the boards manager and then program away just like you would an arduino.

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