Conrolling RaspBMC with an IR Remote

What You Will Need

  1. A Raspberry Pi with Raspbmc already installed (see here for details)
  2. A terminal program such as PuTTy to get command line access to the Pi.
  3. An IR module
  4. A breadboard and jumper cables
    OR
  5. Jumper cables with male and female ends if you want to wire straight to the Pi Board's GPIO pins.
You can get the IR module fairly easily from eBay. I bought two for the princely sum of £2.55 inc P&P so I had a spare in case something blew up. The module I got was a TSOP4838.
Pin 1 is the signal line.
Pin 2 is the Ground
Pin 3 is Power.

TSOP4838 image

Connecting the IR Module to the Pi

So amazingly simple even I got it right first time!
  1. Pin 1 connects to a GPIO pin. by default, the IR software in the Pi defualts to pin 18. Unfortunately GPIO18 was in use for the LCD display, so I connected it to GPIO11 instead.
  2. Pin 2 connects to any of the ground pins on the Pi
  3. Pin3 should connect to one fo the 3v3 pins on the Pi (NOT 5v)
and that's it!
to put it in a nice table:
IR Module Pin numberIR FunctionPi FunctionPi Pin Number
1SignalGPIO 11P1-23
2GNDGNDP1 25
33V33V3P1-01

Configuring the Pi

  1. the software for controlling the IR module, called LIRC, should be already installed as part of the RaspBMC build but for testing purposes, we are going to turn it off for now.
  2. In XBMC, go to Programs,>RaspBMC Settings
  3. Scroll to the IR Remote Section
  4. Ensure that "Enable GPIO TSOP IR Reciever" is disabled.
  5. use your terminal program to SSH to the Pi's command line
  6. type 'sudo nano /etc/modules' and press enter
  7. Add the following lines
    lirc_dev
    lirc_rpi gpio_in_pin=11
    Change the gpio_in_pin to whichever GPIO pin you connected the IR receiver module to.
  8. use "CTRL+X" to exit and save the file.
  9. type 'sudo nano /etc/lirc/hardware.conf"
  10. Change the file to the following (changes in red):
    ########################################################
    # /etc/lirc/hardware.conf
    #
    # Arguments which will be used when launching lircd
    LIRCD_ARGS="--uinput"
    # Don't start lircmd even if there seems to be a good config file
    # START_LIRCMD=false
    # Don't start irexec, even if a good config file seems to exist.
    # START_IREXEC=false
    # Try to load appropriate kernel modules
    LOAD_MODULES=true
    # Run "lircd --driver=help" for a list of supported drivers.
    DRIVER="default"
    # usually /dev/lirc0 is the correct setting for systems using udev
    DEVICE="/dev/lirc0"
    MODULES="lirc_rpi"
    # Default configuration files for your hardware if any
    LIRCD_CONF=""
    LIRCMD_CONF=""
    ######################################################## 
  11. use "CTRL+X" to save and exit
  12. Reboot the Pi
  13. Reconnect to the Pi using SSH.
  14. Type 'sudo modprobe lirc_rpi' and press Enter
  15. Type 'sudo kill $(pidof lircd)' and press Enter
  16. Type 'mode2 -d /dev/lirc0' and press enter.
  17. Now point your remote (any remote will do) at the ir module and press buttons. On the terminal screen(not the TV!) you should see a list of entries for "space" and "jump" followed by random numbers. This shows that the sensor is picking up the signal from the remote.
If you are getting no response, check the wiring to the IR module an that you have correctly set the pin number in etc/modules. I spent several minutes in confusion before rembering that the pin I had specified was actually connected to my LCD panel and the display on the LCD had gone completely bonkers.

Configuring the Pi

This bit can either be really easy or fiendishly complicated, depending on the remote control you want too use. I have a One-For-All remote you can pick up at any electrical retailers. It's one of those programmable remtoes that can handle multiple devices. I programmed the media center option for a standard Microsoft MCE remote (code 2727 if you need it)
This was the best option for me as this remote also controls my TV, my Blu-Ray player and my amplifier, so adding one more function made more sense. If you have a remote you want to use, you can use the 'irrecord' command to record the keypresses on your remtoe and assign them to specific functions. I am not going into the process on how to do that. I've done it once and I still have nightmares about it.

To enable the remote control in XBMC, perform the following steps:
  1. Navigate to Programs>RaspBMC Settings
  2. Go to the IR Remote settings
  3. Ensure that "Enable GPIO TSOP IR Reciever" is enabled.
  4. Select the remote type. in my case, I used  'MCE RC6 Controller'
  5. if you have generated your own controller codes using the irrecord function, select "Custom (lircd.conf)'
  6. select OK
  7. Congratulations! You should now be able to control your Pi with your IR remote control
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