Max Kern's OMOTE Is a Swish 3D-Printable Open Source Alternative to Logitech's Harmony Line

Maker Max Kern has put together an extremely impressive open-hardware alternative to the discontinued Logitech Harmony range of display-equipped universal remotes: the Espressif ESP32-powered OMOTE Open Universal Remote.

"OMOTE is an ESP32 based open source universal remote. Its capacitive 2.8" touchscreen provides an intuitive and snappy user interface for switching devices and settings," Kern boasts of his creation. "No hub or docking station is required as the remote features infrared, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth connectivity. With its well-optimized power consumption, OMOTE can run for months on a charge. And since the design files are open source, you can fully customize them to your devices and needs."

The heart of the project is, as Kern says, an Espressif ESP32 microcontroller module — driving a 2.8" 320×240 capacitive color touchscreen display running a custom user interface built using the LVGL library. "One of the reasons for starting this project was that I wanted to try out LVGL," Kern explains. "For my universal remote interface, I am using multiple pages, that can be scrolled through by swiping horizontally. Each device has its own page that contains the corresponding buttons. There is a larger settings page, that can also be scrolled vertically."

The remote's basic functionality is to replace one or more traditional infrared remote controls, for devices ranging from TVs and set-top boxes to ACs and other HVAC systems. Scrolling to the page for a particular device unveils a custom set of buttons, selected from the various features of the original remote, each of which triggers the corresponding infrared signal to control the device.

"To make use of the 2.4GHz antenna [and transceiver]," Kern adds of the ESP32's built-in radio capabilities, "I created another UI page for smart devices. This way, the remote can control light bulbs by communicating with my MQTT server over Wi-Fi. Right now, the IR codes and button mapping is hard coded for my personal use. A next step would be making the interface configurable. This could be done on the remote itself by expanding the existing touchscreen UI or on a computer using for example a HTML interface that is hosted by the ESP32."

A full project write-up is available on Kern's Hackaday.io page, while the project design files and source code are available on GitHub under the reciprocal GNU General Public License 3.