Last modified 12 years ago Last modified on 2012-10-17 06:22:48

Introduction

This component permits the registration of the SquareConnect ​SQBlaster, or ​SQBlaster Plus, as an IR Transmitter Device with Vera. The use of these devices allows IR controlled components to be operated "remotely" from Vera, in addition to using SQRemote iPhone app, via the ​MiOS IR (aka "Remote") devices.

This Plugin allows the SQBlaster, or SQBlaster Plus, to show up as an IR Transmitter under MiOS, and any existing IR Devices can be re-attached to use the SQBlaster instead of the prior USB-UIRT or GC-100 IR interfaces. In addition, the SQBlaster Plus device exposes an additional 4x IR Transmitter devices, for a total of 5 independently controllable IR channels.

It also goes on to show how these IR Devices can be sourced from the MiOS IR Catalog, hand-built, or extracted from SQRemote files.

In MiOS, the Remote Control functions are broken into a few different components. Each of these components is required to Control "something" over IR from a MiOS (Vera) unit.

Roughly, these are:

  1. A physical device that can accept Pronto Codes and Transmit, or Blast, IR signals.
    We'll call this the IR Transmitter. An example is the SQBlaster device from SquareConnect, other examples include the GC100, iTach and USB-UIRT devices.
  1. A MiOS Plugin for the IR Transmitter.
    This Plugin will adapt calls, from a MiOS defined interface, and translate them into calls that the IR Transmitter requires in order to deliver the Pronto Codes as IR signals.
  1. A MiOS IR Transmitter Device, created for the SQBlaster Plugin from (b), and configured to use the correct IP Address of the SQBlaster
  1. A MiOS IR Plugin for each piece of AV Gear you want to Control.
    Each IR Device, such as a TV/Receiver/AirConditioning etc, has a specific set of actions that can be performed, as well as a specific set of Pronto Codes that need to be delivered for each of these actions. In MiOS, these need to be represented as another Plugin, and related Device, that can be called upon to trigger the sending of a specific IR Code for each of it's actions. These can be sourced from:
    1. the MiOS "Remote Control" Catalog OR;
    2. hand built OR;
    3. derived from the ​box.net Backup of your SQRemote configuration

The process for hand building these is outlined here:

Building ​MiOS ProntoCode IR by hand

The process for transforming existing SQBlaster/SQRemote devnnnnnnnn.xml files, from a Backup on Box.net, into MiOS Plugin file(s) outlined here:

​MiOS IR Device Extraction from SQRemote Devices

  1. A MiOS IR Device, created for the IR Plugin from (d)
    This MiOSIR Device must be associated, in the MiOS UI, to use the MiOS IR Transmitter from (c).

NOTE: In MiOS Beta release 1.1.1183, the IR-Device mechanism was broken, along with the ability to associate an IR Device with it's IR Transmitter. This has been fixed in the subsequent Beta builds.

NOTE: A more advanced IR integration with the SQBlaster is being Developed by the MiCasaVerde team.

Installation

Scenes

Once you've installed both the SQBlaster IR Transmitter Plugin, and a AV-Device specific IR Device Plugin (like the Panasonic TV), you can use MiOS Advanced Scenes to control the component over IR.


Debugging

References

Attachments