Raspberry Pi and IR remote control with LIRC

I have been planing for a while to add an IR remote control to my RPi and the day came with the discovery of a IR set with remote control sold by Kjell&Company for a symbolic price.

First step first. I have added the receiver part since it does not require soldering at all. I have followed this manual to set and test LIRC on RPi with one exception - I use GPIO 18 as input from the IR detector. The set does not include any manual, so some research was necessary. The example code is for Arduino without any references to the specific hardware. Anyway, here I found the most relevant information. One can find example lircd.conf for some similar remotes but they did not work with the one in the package with label KEYES and distinct key pattern.


Setting up LIRC was nearly breeze. I managed to install the TV-box lircd.conf almost without problems but I kept failing to create a proper configuration for the KEYES IR control. After some struggle I managed to assemble something that fits quite well with what works with Arduino, so here it is. It might not be perfect but it is better start than nothing. If you find better parameterization, please let me know in the comment section.

# Please make this file available to others
# by sending it to
#
# this config file was automatically generated
# using lirc-0.9.0-pre1(default) on Sun Jan 19 10:13:19 2014
#
# contributed by
#
# brand:                      KEYES
# model no. of remote control:
# devices being controlled by this remote:
#

begin remote

  name  KEYES
  bits           16
  flags SPACE_ENC|CONST_LENGTH
  eps            30
  aeps          100

  header       9281  4484
  one           622  1657
  zero          622   513
  ptrail        622
  repeat       9241  2236
  pre_data_bits   16
  pre_data       0xFF
  gap          109259
  toggle_bit_mask 0x0

      begin codes
          KEY_UP                   0x629D
          KEY_DOWN                 0xA857
          KEY_LEFT                 0x22DD
          KEY_RIGHT                0xC23D
          KEY_OK                   0x02FD
          KEY_1                    0x6897
          KEY_2                    0x9867
          KEY_3                    0xB04F
          KEY_4                    0x30CF
          KEY_5                    0x18E7
          KEY_6                    0x7A85
          KEY_7                    0x10EF
          KEY_8                    0x38C7
          KEY_9                    0x5AA5
          KEY_0                    0x4AB5
          KEY_NUMERIC_STAR         0x42BD
          KEY_NUMERIC_POUND        0x52AD
      end codes

end remote

Now, the receiver is vs1838b and here again you can find the pins. Be careful, the GND and VCC pins are flipped on the connectors and here is a sketch what I have identified. There is also a small LED that blinks when signal is detected.

 

While we are on the subject, here is one more remote (iZound FM-sändare FMT-950 or 1.8" LCD Car MP4 Player ) and the corresponding lircd.conf:

begin remote

  name  car_mp4_player
  bits           16
  flags SPACE_ENC|CONST_LENGTH
  eps            30
  aeps          100

  header       9022  4421
  one           610  1621
  zero          610   505
  ptrail        602
  repeat       8992  2194
  pre_data_bits   16
  pre_data       0xFD
  gap          107225
  toggle_bit_mask 0x0

      begin codes
          KEY_1                    0x08F7
          KEY_2                    0x8877
          KEY_3                    0x48B7
          KEY_4                    0x28D7
          KEY_5                    0xA857
          KEY_6                    0x6897
          KEY_7                    0x18E7
          KEY_8                    0x9867
          KEY_9                    0x58A7
          KEY_0                    0x30CF
          KEY_POWER                0x00FF
          KEY_MENU                 0x807F
          KEY_PLAYPAUSE            0x40BF
          KEY_MEDIA_REPEAT         0x20DF
          KEY_CHANNELDOWN          0xA05F
          KEY_CHANNELUP            0x609F
          KEY_VOLUMEDOWN           0x906F
          KEY_VOLUMEUP             0x50AF
          KEY_PREVIOUS             0xB04F
          KEY_NEXT                 0x708F
          BTN_EXTRA                0x10EF
      end codes

end remote