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1. Yes there are a lot of details here which ideally sometime should be described in detail Thus a routing is actually defined how to send commands to the device in question Note that there may be many redundant paths The actual software is actually using this redundancy thus implementing a certain failure safeness The actual from gateways and their associated paths are tried in order until someone succeeds in sending the command Of course only to the extent that transmission failures can be detected non reachable Ethernet gateways are detected humans blocking the way between an IR blaster and its target are not Also the interconnection between AV devices can be described here see the example Thus it is possible to send high level input selecting commands like turn the amplifier my_amplifier to the DVD player my_dvdplayer and the software will determine what command IR or other to send to what device This is later called select mode There is a great potential in this concept Consider for example a Conrad Egg transmitter which for our purposes is nothing but IR gt RF gateway Assume that a IR stick on emitter is glued to the egg and connected to a Ethernet gt IR gateway If there is say a RF controlled Intertechno switch interfacing with an electric consumer it is possible to just issue the command for turning the electric consumer on or off and the software will find out that it has to send the appropria
2. In the future it may also be available under additional conditions so called dual licensing File formats are in the public domain including their machine readable descriptions 1 e dtd and schema files As a working project name as well as in the Java module names I have been using the name Harc which is simply an acronym for Home Automation and Remote Control Unfortunately the name is far too generic to register as an Internet domain There is even a Sourceforge project named Harc inactive since 2002 It is proposed to call a user or developer of the system an harc eologist The present document is aimed more at a high level description of the system rather than being a user s manual It describes most aspects of Harc at most very roughly This is unfinished experimental software aimed at the expert user Non programmers will probably not find anything of use herein No warranty of any kind is given 3 Overview of the system The system consists of a number of data formats and Java classes operating on those formats It has been the goal to formulate file formats allowing for a very clean description of infrared protocols the commands of devices to be controlled in particular but not exclusively audio and video equipment networking components topology of an installation as well as macros From these very general universal formats configuration files in other formats used by other systems can automatically b
3. most cases when it is sensible to call use the class individually it contains a ma in method i e can be called from the command line In general there are a number of arguments A usage message can be generated in the usual GNU way using help as argument 6 Program usage The main entry point in the main jar file is called Main Its usage message reads Using the g as well as no argument at all to allowing for double clicking the ja r file starts Harc in GUI mode described in the next section Invoking Harc with the r 1 Page 7 Harc Home Automation and Remote Control portnumber starts the readline and port listening mode respectively Otherwise Harc will run in non interactive mode executing one command or macro and then exit 6 1 Non interactive mode If there is only one argument it is considered to be a macro and it is attempted to execute it Using as argument the available macros will be listed The s option enables the select mode described previously Otherwise the arguments are considered as a device instance name followed by a command name and optionally by arguments for the command If the command name is missing or the possible command names for the device will be listed The remaining options are as follows A switch only audio on target device if possible V switch only video on target device if possible M use so called smart memory on some devices h home filename
4. these are also used in an unmodified state In no case Harc borrows code from the projects Also in this way additional functionality is implemented none of which is of essential like import export of a certain file format Differently put should the need arise to eliminate derivedness only minor nonessential functionality will be sacrificed or needs to be implemented anew 7 1 LIRC Linux InfraRed Control LIRC is a well established mature and active free software project It is used in very many free software projects It contains support for a large number of infrared senders and receivers some sane hardware designs other possibly less sane There are also a large number of user contributed configuration files for different IR remote controls and devices in general consisting of leaned commands A network enabled LIRC server consists of the software running on a host listening on a network socket containing one Page 11 Harc Home Automation and Remote Control or more IR transmitter or transmitter channels A client sends requests to e g transmit a certain command for a certain device type Since Harc can talk to a network LIRC server see source in the file 1lirc java there is a large number of IR senders that Harc in this way indirectly supports Unfortunately the configuration files are residing on the LIRC server only there is no way to request the transmission of a signal the server does not know in its da
5. use home filename as home file instead of the default one m macro filename use macro filename as home file instead of the default one t type prefer command of type type regardless of ordering in home file if possible T zero_or_one for codes with toggles like RC5 set the toggle value to the argument V verbose execution d debug code set debug code See debugargs java for its precise meaning Use 1 to turn on all possible debugging a aliasfile Normally aliases allowing the software accept e g enter and select as synonyms for ok are taken from the official command xm1 This option allows the usage of another alias file b browserpath Allows using an alternative path to the browser used to invoke browse commands instead of the default one p propsfile Allows using an alternative properties file instead of the default one The following options apply only to the select mode Z zone Page 8 Harc Home Automation and Remote Control Select for zone zone if possible c connection Prefer connection type connection for the selection if possible 6 2 Readline mode The Readline mode is an interactive command line mode where the user types the commands one at a time If GNU readline is available the extraordinary facilities of GNU readline allows not only to edit present command and to recall previous commands but also for an intelligent completion of relevant names for macros devices and commands I
6. Harc Home Automation and Remote Control Table of contents LAN A O 2 A ngee ON 2 B COVED VIEW O E 2 ANAC A TIVO Se II e Se 3 4i The command nan ion 3 42 The protocol files a A 3 A O S 4 4A The a e o 6 ASS MA aia 7 5 Basic Java AS iia 7 6 Programi US na as d Eaa deo ana TSE 7 6 1 Non interactive TOES sacs cessecesessiseedinabepaieibageadiaraaceasdboesadeaspaseeds bedeecceaueseeeebancedenteonse 8 6 2 Readlinie Moden neninn aida diaria ean 9 6 3 Port Listen MOMS ii das dencia 9 6A The Cr A N 9 6 5 PEONES io 11 7 Interaction with other projects 0 A A A a A 11 7 1 LIRC Linux InfraRed Controla dis 11 EN A E EEE E E A E A EE 12 TS UR SCOPE isna a aie ht A a al ei he alate a EE ARE EA e 13 TA TONO dis 13 A O 13 TO Java REAGIING aos 13 SUE developm tt nenien deal eo 13 D TOWN GAdS it idos 14 Harc Home Automation and Remote Control 1 Revision history 2009 07 18 Initial version 2 Introduction Since 2006 I have been writing software designed file formats and classified remote control signals revolving around infrared remote control and home automation It presently consists of around 18000 lines of source code in Java and XML Very much code has been junked or re written Since I do not have an immediate goal and my possibility to work on the project is limited I have decided to make the outcome available The present version is copyrighted by myself and available under the GNU General Public License version 3
7. and Remote Control include file structure that can be used to structure the data 4 3 1 Example As an example consider the Oppo DV 983HDVD player with serial support This is supported by Harc with the file oppo_dv983 xm1 Its commands can be downloaded directly from the manufacturer hats off both the infrared and the serial commands As can be found in the spreadsheet on the IR code the device uses the previously mentioned nec1 protocol with device number equal to 73 This corresponds to the first command set in the mentioned device file The serial commands form another commandset subdivided into commandgroups depending on whether they take an argument and or deliver output Note that some commands for example play are available both as IR and as serial commands Other interesting examples are the _dbox2 xml files referring to the German dbox with the open source tuxbox software each containing two sagem_dbox2 xml philips_dbox2 xml or three nokia_dbox2 xm1 different infrared command sets as well as an elaborate web api command set Another very interesting example is the Denon A V Receiver denon_avr3808 xml having several infrared command sets using the denon protocol which ironically is called the Sharp protocol by the firm Denon as well as several command sets using the denon_k Denon Kaseikyo protocol Then there is a large number of serial commands available through both the serial box as well as through
8. be produced by Harc as rmdu exports Thus for an IR controlled device in the Harc database a suitable JP1 enabled remote control can be made to send the appropriate IR signals There are some details that will be documented somewhere else RemoteMaster is presented as an interactive GUI program however it can also although this is not supported be called through a Java API Harc presently uses version 1 89 which is not the current version Although it seems to lack all copyright notices it is referred to as open source and GPL Another tool from the JP1 project is DecodeIR by John Fine available under the GNU General Public License version 2 or later It consists of a shared library DecodeIR dll1 or DecodeIR se written in C together with a Java wrapper DecodeIR jar To build that jar file also this file is needed The tool attempts to decode an IR signal in CCF form into a well known protocol with device number command number possibly subdevice number and other parameters See the IR protocols pane in the GUI Page 12 Harc Home Automation and Remote Control 7 3 IRScope Together with appropriate hardware the Windows program IRScope by Kevin Timmerman is very useful to record and optionally analyze unknown IR signals again using the same DecodeIR as above The log files generated by this program can be directly parsed see the code in ict_parse java or the IR protocols pane The program is
9. creates a full JP1 type image that can be flashed on a URC 7781 that 1s not just one or a few device updates 4 4 The home file The protocol and device files described up until now are a sort of universal data base common and invariant to every user at least in principle In contrast the home file possibly the name is not very well chosen describes the individual setup home It is a good idea to think of the device files as class definitions classes which can be instantiated one or more times in that one or more devices of the same class are present in the home configuration each having its individual instance name It is instructive to have a look at the supplied file home xm1 at this point In the home file the different devices are defined as class instances They can be given alternate names aliases and groups can for different purposes be defined For example this can be useful for generating GUIs taking only a certain group of devices into account Gateways are defined a gateway is some gadget connecting some other media together for example the GlobalCache among other things connects the tcp connector on the local area network 1an to its output connectors which may be e g an infrared blaster or stick in LED controlling an IR device Devices that can be controlled declare the said device connector combination as a from gateway or indirectly as a from gateway ref using the XML idref facility
10. e generated There is also a quite universal GUI that gives access to most of the functionality within the Java classes This has been written to demonstrate the possibilities for the expert user Page 2 Harc Home Automation and Remote Control Convenience and accessibility for the novice user has not been a priority Such user interfaces are conceivable however Directly supported communication hardware and software are GlobalCache GC 100 IRTrans LAN only the LAN version is supported directly RS232 serial communication through the GlobalCach or ser2net TCP sockets HTTP RF 433 and 868 MHz through EZcontrol T10 as well as through an IR gt RF translator like Conrad Eggs or Marmitek pyramids Indirectly through LIRC a vast number of IR senders are supported 4 Data model Next a somewhat technical description of the file formats will be given These are all defined in the form of XML files with a rather strict DTD The discussion to follow will focus on the concepts not on the details Of course the semantics of the files are defined by the DTD file Necessary theoretical background on IR signals can be found for example in this article 4 1 The command names Harc has higher requirements on the data quality of its input files than other related projects For example in LIRC a configuration file consists of a device name and a number of commands with associated IR signals The names of the commands there are in pri
11. f GNU readline is not available Harc s readline mode will still work only these comfort features are missing The semantics of the typed command are like the non interactive arguments There are also some extra commands introduced by these in general correspond to the command line options described above The normal command line options are ignored 6 3 Port listen mode Starting Harc in port listening mode starts a multithreaded server listening for commands on the TCP port given as argument default 9999 The server responds to a connection on that port and spawns off a new thread for each connection It listens to commands on that port sending output back The semantics of the command line sent to the server is the same as for the non interactive invocations with the addition of the commands quit which makes the session thread close and die which in addition instructs the server not to spawn any more threads but to die when the last session has ended 6 4 The GUI The present GUI was not designed for deployment It does not offer a user friendly way for allowing a nontechnical user to control his home or home theater Rather the goal was a research type GUI to allow the expert user to access to most of the functionality of the Java classes without having to look in the Javadoc class documentation Hopefully in the near future there will be one or more cool GUIs for the system This need not be additions to the p
12. fferent types of commands for the device like IR RF signals this is at least for the few cases presently supported nothing else but IR signals with the infrared light as carrier replaced by an radio signal for Europe of 433 or 868 MHz frequency commands over serial RS232 interfaces or TCP sockets or utilizing a WEB API Also browsing the device pointing a Web browser to its www server pinging and sending WOL packages are considered commands as well as suppling power sometimes in reverse direction like a motorized blind going up or down Possibly the same command can be issued over different media Some commands may take arguments or deliver output For this and other reasons care should be taken to use the correct command names not just a phrase the manufacturer found cool Commands are grouped in commandsets consisting of commands having its type ir serial tcp device number etc in common IR signals within a device file may contain codes in Pronto CCF format in addition or instead if the structured information protocol device number command number etc Actually exporting in XML format means generating an XML file augmented with the raw CCF codes In may cases also so called cooked Pronto codes Background written by remotecentral are included as well as JP1 protocol information The device configuration file is processed by an xinclude aware parser allowing a certain Page 4 Harc Home Automation
13. ial functionality of Harc There is no need to get them just to try things out Corresponding sources can either be downloaded from the Internet using URLs published in this page or as required by the GPL requested from me Page 14
14. licensed under GNU General Public License version 2 or later Harc neither uses code or links to it and is not a derived work 7 4 Tonto Tonto is normally referred to as an alternate configuration CCF editor for the first generation of the Philips Pronto remote controls It is a free replacement for the original ProntoEdit program written by Stewart Allen licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2 Being written in Java it runs everywhere in contrast to the original Windows only program It also contains a Java API Harc uses the Tonto API in the form of the file tonto jar to import CCF files and to generate CCF files for devices in its data base The latter are supposed to be more of a target for aliasing than a directly usable user interface Unfortunately the project is essentially inactive since 2004 7 5 wakeonlan Harc uses wakeonlan licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License a small Java library for implementing WOL functionality 7 6 Java Readline The interactive command line uses the Java Readline licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License which of course only makes sense when used in conjunction with the GNU Readline library which is licensed under GNU General Public License version 2 or later 8 Future development The big missing piece is of course the complete lack of a pretty user interface Minor improvements e Replace the DTD based file formats
15. macros Note that both the execution of macros and of commands are executed in separate threads This pane is the only one coming close to deployment usage The other panes can be useful for setting up a system defining and testing new devices or protocols or for research usage 6 4 2 The Device classes pane This pane allows for sending infrared signals no other command type to the using either a GlobalCache or an IRTrans that has been selected using the Output HW pane including output connector to use The home configuration file is not used The devices are called by their class names 6 4 3 The IR Protocols pane This pane has more of research character For a protocol in the protocol data base a device number possibly a subdevice number and a command number is entered pressing the Encode button causes the corresponding IR code in Pronto CCF format to be computed and displayed Pressing the send button causes the code to be sent to a GlobalCache or IRTrans that was selected in the Output HW pane Note that it is possible to hand edit including pasting from the clipboard the content of the raw code before sending Whenever there is content in the raw code text area the decode button can be invoked sending the content to the DecodelR library thus trying to identify an unknown IR signal 1f possible Log files from the Irscope program using icf as their file extension can be imported using the icf button The
16. nciple completely arbitrary and it appears to be common to try to follow the vendor s naming In Harc there is instead a fixed but of course from the developer extensible list of command names intended to uniquely denote a command for a device A command name in principle is a verb not a noun and should describe the action as appropriate as possible There is for example no command power instead there are three commands power_on power_off and power_toggle having the obvious semantics Also a command which toggles between play and pause status may not be called play but should be called play_pause The names are defined in the XML file commandnames xml from which a Java enum command_t is created through an XSLT style sheet mk_command_t xs1 Further rules for command names are found as comments in that file 4 2 The protocol files By infrared protocol we mean a mapping taking a few parameters one of those a command number one a device number sometimes others to an infrared signal A protocol file is an XML file describing exactly how the IR signal is made up from the parameters The format is quite close to an XML version of the IRP notation of the JP1 Project It is a machine readable description on how to map the parameters into a modulated infrared signal consistent with a technical description The protocol is identified by its name A protocol takes a certain number of parameters although Page 3 Harc H
17. ome Automation and Remote Control sometimes one is defaulted At his point the reader may like to compare this prose description of the protocol we and the JP1 project call nec1 with the XML code in nec1 xm1 Note that our description using an arbitrary subdevice number corresponds to the author s Extended Nec protocol The naming of the different protocols is of course somewhat arbitrary In general I have tried to be compatible with the JP1 Project It can be noted that the supported radio frequency protocols are nothing but IR signals with the carrier consisting of infrared 950nm light substituted by suitable radio carrier typically of 433 MHz Ideally most users should not have to worry with the protocol files This is only necessary when introducing a device with a IR protocol that has not yet been implemented At the time of this writing the 17 protocols have been implemented this covers the most important ones but not all known to e g the JP1 project 4 3 Device files A device file is an XML file describing the commands for controlling a device In Harc a device file truly describes the device and its commands stripped from all information not pertaining to the very device like key binding on a remote button layout display name the IR blaster it is connected to location IP address MAC address etc This is in contrast to many other systems like Pronto CCF files or JP1 device updates There may be many di
18. re presently appears to be some glitches in the button enabling code click e g in the raw code text area to enable buttons that are incorrectly disabled Page 10 Harc Home Automation and Remote Control 6 4 4 The Output HW pane This pane has three subpanes GlobalCache for selecting the GlobalCache and its output connector used on the Device classes and on the IR Protocols pane IRTrans dito and EZControl The latter is sort of an interactive toolbox for the EZcontrol T10 allowing to send different commands inquiry the status of one or all of the preselected switches as well as getting a list of its programmed timers 6 4 5 The IRcalc panel This pane is a sort of spreadsheet for computing IR signals in the Pronto or JP1 context The exact way it works is left as an exercise for the reader 6 4 6 The Options panel This pane allows the user to set a few more options On off options are sometimes instead available through the Options pull down menu 6 5 Properties Harc uses a properties file in XML format For some of the properties there is no sensible access in the GUI For this reason it may therefore sometimes be necessary to manually edit this file with a text editor or XML editor 7 Interaction with other projects HARC interacts with other projects within the area It can be pointed out that in the case of Java projects Harc uses unmodified jar files in the case of shared libraries so or d11
19. resent system but rather integrations with other technologies and projects like Openremote The main properties of the present GUI will be described next The GUI consists of a title bar with pull down menus for File Edit Options Misc and Help These are believed to be more or less self explanatory There are six panes that will be described in order Many interface elements have a short tool text help messages which are displayed when the cursor is hoovering above the element The lower part of the main window is occupied by the console The latter is a read only pseudo paper roll console listing commands tracing and debugging information as directed by the user s selections as well as command output and error messages Page 9 Harc Home Automation and Remote Control Except for the mandatory about popup which is of course non modal popups are not used The GUI resides almost completely within the file gui_main java It was designed using the Netbeans IDE version 6 5 6 4 1 The Home Macros pane This pane corresponds to using Harc through the Home configuration file Devices using their instance names as defined in the home configuration file are sent commands possibly with one argument possibly returning output in the console Commands taking two or more arguments cannot be sent through the GUI The first row is for sending commands to devices the second for the select mode while the third one can execute
20. ta base A patch for this was submitted by myself but rejected by the maintainer I plan to make it available on my web server From its IR data base Harc can generate configuration files for LIRC There is presently no possibility to import LIRC files Presently there is no support for selecting output channels on LIRC servers with multiple IR devices or IR channels This can probably be fairly easily implemented using the LIRC server command SET_TRANSMITTERS and the connector attribute in the home xml file LIRC is licensed under GNU General Public License version 2 or later However Harc is not a derived work it contains no LIRC code and is not linked to any libraries It optionally talks to a LIRC server but this functionality is entirely optional 7 2 JP1 The JP1 project is a very unique project It aims at complete control over the remotes made by Universal Electronics UEIC which include the brand names One For All and Radio Shack Through careful study of its hard and firmware techniques for custom programming a remote equipped with a 6 pin connector on the remote s PCB called JP1 giving the project its name was developed Thus an off the shelf remote can be taken much beyond its original capacities Most importantly it can be programmed from a computer to generate arbitrary IR signals RemoteMaster is a program for among other things creating so called device updates These device updates can
21. te IR signal to the IR gateway However writing the configuration file is a job for the expert Page 6 Harc Home Automation and Remote Control 4 5 Macros A simple macro facility has been implemented This is presently in the form of one XML file see the example file macros xm1 The syntax was inspired by Lisp Macros may call commands XML element command wait delay print a message message call other macros also recursively macroca11 use select mode select src and contain conditionals cond using the syntax of the Lisp cond The recursion facility eliminates the need for a loop construct For the convenience of programs acting on the macro file macros can be bundled into groups XML element macros They may be public or private the latter can only be called from other macros Macros can be executed by the macro engine macro_engine java However also other usages are possible Being all XML XML transformations are conceivable which generate all sort of output such as creating shell scripts generating HTML pages or macro definitions for smart remote controls like Netremote using its extension language Lua Macros with arguments are presently not implemented 5 Basic Java classes There is a large number of Java classes operating on the data objects Some classes operates on protocols some on device classes through device files some on device instances in the sense of the home file In
22. the telnet tcp port 23 4 3 2 Importers Since Harc is so picky with command names and their semantics the value of an import facility is limited necessary information is simply not there or is wrong There exists a large number of IR signal data in the Internet for example from LIRC configuration files JP1 device updates or the large collection mainly CCF of files on Remotecentral Presently Harc has importers for Pronto CCE and JP1 s device upgrades in RemoteMaster format I sort of wrote a LIRC to CCF translator a few years ago possibly I will finish it someday However the importers have as their goal to create a first iteration of a device file not even guaranteed to be valid XML to be tweaked manually 4 3 3 Exporters Writing an exporter is in principle easier Harc presently can export the IR signals of a device in CCF format LIRC format either a particular device or all devices connected to a particular LIRC server defined in the home file JP1 s device upgrades in RemoteManager format as well as the rem files used by IRTrans Individual IR signals can be exported in wav format for usage with an audio output driving an IR LED after full wave rectification see for example this article This feature is presently not available through the GUI Page 5 Harc Home Automation and Remote Control Many other things are possible I have had some success creating a program that given an XML configuration file
23. with scheme based This should be a real migration to more intelligent formats not just a syntax change e Implement support for multi transmitter LIRC servers e Eliminating the need to configure a LIRC server by finishing and publishing the LIRC patch described above and making corresponding changes to lirc java e Scripting facility for example with Rhino Javascript Should this replace or complement the present macro engine Page 13 Harc Home Automation and Remote Control Presently I do not want to commit myself to maintaining Harc The goal is not and has never been to present a full solution for for example home automation but rather to produce some reusable data exchange formats and some useful tools that fit with other projects Nevertheless I welcome both bug reports bug fixes as well as enhancements I also welcome new configuration files for devices and protocols I look forward in particular to a cooperation with the Openremote Project 9 Downloads Download Harc Relevant third party libraries in jar format are included A version of libJavaReadline so for 64 bit Linux can be downloaded here Precompiled dynamic libraries 1ibreadline so and libhistory so should be available from any Linux distributor package name probably readline or so Precompiled 1ibDecode IR version 2 36 can be downloaded for Windows 32 bit Linux x86 and 64 bit Linux x86 Note that these components are needed only to enable some spec

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