lirc2hass

lirc2hass

Listen for input events detected by InputLIRC and generate events in Home Assistant. Primarily useful for triggering Home Assistant automations using Logitech Harmony remotes via an LIRC-compatible remote control.

The lirc2hass daemon generates Home Assistant events when input events are received from an IR receiver by InputLIRC. Home Assistant automations can be triggered by these events, which can then call any services available to Home Assistant, such as turning lights on and off, close blinds, etc.

It is the missing link that allows buttons on the Logitech Harmony remote to trigger any device that can be controlled by Home Assistant, where the Home Assistant server cannot be physically collocated with the Harmony Hub. (If it were, then you could use the LIRC integration directly on the HA server.)

Installation

lirc2hass should run on most Linux installations (tested on Rasperry Pi OS) and requires the following:

• an IR receiver that is supported by inputlirc and connected locally to the system.
• inputlirc package installed and configured on the underlying operating system to read and process input from the IR receiver.

Install the latest release of this package via PyPi:

pip install lirc2hass

Run the daemon using lirc2hass hass_base_url -a , where hass_base_url is the base URL for your instance of Home Assistant.

systemd configuration

Configure systemd to start the daemon at boot by installing lirc2hass.service into /etc/systemd/system after editing to suit your installation.

If the daemon is run as a non-root user, ensure that user has the necessary privileges to read from the LIRC socket. On Debian-based systems, membership of group input is required to read the LIRC socket, located at /var/run/lirc/lircd.

Logitech Harmony configuration

TODO

• Add Windows MCE controller as a device in Harmony setup
• Position IR receiver to reliably receive IR commands from Harmony (or mini-IR blaster)

Home Assistant configuration

TODO

• (optional) Add new Home Assistant admin user
• Create long-lived authorisation token for user
• Pass token to lirc2hass using --hass-auth-token option

Options

Option	Type/Default	Description
-a | --hass-auth-token	auth_token	Enable sending of authorisation header, using auth_token as the token.
-A | --hass-auth-token-file	filename	Read authorisation token from filename.
-l | --lirc-sock-path	/var/run/lirc/lircd	Set path to LIRC socket.
-c | --max-reconnect-delay	64	Set maximum reconnect delay for the LIRC socket. The daemon reconnects automatically on disconnection using an exponential backoff delay with this value as the maximum.
-r | --min-repeat-time-ms	740	Ignore repeated keystrokes that are generated within the specified time (in ms).
-v | --verbose		Set logging verbosity (repeat to increase).
-V | --version		Show currently installed version.