Do universal RF remotes exist?

[andyross]

Not directly JP1 related, but I was wondering if 3rd party RF remotes exist? With more and more devices supporting RF, and some requiring it, I wonder if 3rd parties make compatible remotes. Even if it only supports normal commands and not voice, it would still be nice.

[mathdon]

Early devices with RF control used proprietary hardware and were not amenable to support by a universal remote. Recent devices use the ZigBee RF4CE standard (RF4CE = RF for Consumer Electronics) and can, in principle, be supported in this way. I am aware of four UEI remotes that support RF4CE. These are the URC2068BC2, URC2125BC0, URC2135BC0 and URC3220, all of which are supported by RMIR. You may have noticed that recent releases of RMIR have an RF button on the toolbar. This gives access to the RF support in RMIR which enables you to customize the RF capabilities as far as the UEI remote allows. But I said "in principle" above as there are limits to what is possible in these four remotes.

There are big differences between the signalling protocols of IR and RF. For IR there are many widely differing protocols and to support a particular device you need to know the protocol, the fixed data that identifies the device within that protocol and the command codes for each signal. Much of RMIR is concerned with the setting of the command codes. RF support through RF4CE is in some ways simpler, as a huge range of command codes are specified within the RF4CE specification, though RMIR allows them to be specified in the same way as for IR. The data that identifies the vendor and the device is also customizable within RMIR. The problem is the protocol. The RF4CE is a signalling standard that allows for various protocols with it. It lays down a basic protocol, the ZigBee Remote Control (ZRC) protocol but also allows vendor-specific protocols, and even ZRC has options within it. The current RF4CE-capable remotes listed above support some, but not all, ZRC options and for some of them also a UEI proprietary protocol but have no means of installing other vendor protocols.

I have all four remotes and only one RF-capable device, a UK Virgin Media cable box but its protocol is not supported by the remotes so I have no experience of actually using any of them "for real".

You can find further info in the following threads:

RF Support in RMIR
RF Capabilites of URC2125
URC-2068bc2-0780-0002-R

The first of these also has info on an RF Packet Sniffer that, with the support included in RMIR, enables you to read and interpret the RF4CE signals from an existing OEM remote.

If you follow this up and get one of these remotes, or any other RF4CE-capable universal remote, do please post your experiences with it.

[mdavej]

I saw a universal learning RF remote on Amazon a few years ago. I have no idea how well it worked.

These days, so many devices support IP control, that's what I use instead of IR or RF.

[andyross]

I was asking more in curiosity. I have a Comcast X1 cable box and Roku's (Roku 4, Roku Ultra 4800) that support RF.

[mdavej]

I was asking more in curiosity. I have a Comcast X1 cable box and Roku's (Roku 4, Roku Ultra 4800) that support RF.

Not sure about Comcast, but I control all my Rokus by IP. It's pretty great since you can launch any app directly. So I have a screen full of icons for the apps I use the most.

[mathdon]

I saw a universal learning RF remote on Amazon a few years ago.

Are you sure that it wasn't a remote supporting both IR and RF, with learning only for IR? RF4CE signals cannot be learned, as they are encrypted with a two-part key, one part of which is exchanged during pairing and the other is a sequential frame number that is sent unencrypted as part of the signal. The receiving device requires the frame number of a signal to be greater than that of the previous signal, so learning a signal and re-sending it will not work. RMIR can get the fixed part of the key, that exchanged during pairing, in one of two ways. From a UEI remote it can read it from the E2 area, for an OEM remote it can get it from the pairing exchange if a packet sniffer is used to capture the signals of that exchange. So RMIR can decrypt signals received by the packet sniffer but I think it is very doubtful that a universal remote would have that capability.

[mdavej]

Yeah I'm certain it learned RF due to the description and the comments. Have never seen anything else like it before or since. I wish I still had the link.

[andyross]

I was asking more in curiosity. I have a Comcast X1 cable box and Roku's (Roku 4, Roku Ultra 4800) that support RF.

Not sure about Comcast, but I control all my Rokus by IP. It's pretty great since you can launch any app directly. So I have a screen full of icons for the apps I use the most.

I don't like using a phone/tablet as a remote. I like something with physical keys I can use without having to look at it, or charge up every day. Plus, Roku does have many direct codes for services that you can program onto a button. I have some programmed onto the color keys on my RCRP05B.

[Ed]

Not sure about Comcast, but I control all my Rokus by IP. It's pretty great since you can launch any app directly. So I have a screen full of icons for the apps I use the most.

I've wondered about using my cell phone to control my Roku TV, but I've never tried it. My main TV is connected to a receiver for sound, a Raspberry Pi for Kodi (OSMC), and to a BluRay player which I seldom use. I suppose I could be content to use the BluRay player's remote to control it. The receiver is connected to the TV via CEC, so I suspect the cell phone would work OK with it. There is, however, no workable CEC solution for the Pi/OSMC, so I can't get away from having a second remote to control it.

Today, of course, I control them all with my trusty OAR remote in the tried and true fashion. Some of the streaming services I use don't have discrete Roku codes, but for them I just hit "menu" and navigate to the service I want.

I wonder if I might be missing something?