disclaimer: I know this isn’t the use case it’s designed for but I’m wondering if anyone else has wanted this and knows a solution, whether or not using the bond bridge.
Bond helps me control “analog” devices with a digital interface or “remote” like smartthings.
I want to do the reverse. I want to control digital/smartthings with an analog remote, like the one pictured here.
Why? Because there’s value in having both tactile buttons that I can keep in my pocket/nightstand AND having smart integration so I can use automations and timers. Specifically, I want to reach out and feel, to be able to turn on my white noise machine or ceiling fan in the middle of the night without opening my eyes and without waking anyone by yelling out to a voice assistant.
My bond bridge clearly has the ability to “listen” to signals from analog devices like this when it is adding a new device. I wish it could always be listening for these kinds of RF/IR signals and send a smartthings API request in response. Are there products that do this?
There is a request deep in the backlog for the Bond developers to enable a “listening mode” whenever not currently transmitting; however, it has a lot of caveats and I don’t expect that it will come any time soon, if ever.
I 100% agree on physical remotes being useful. I rarely use voice assistants.
I meet my desire to have physical remotes integrate into my smart home systems via 2 main ways.
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Logitech Harmony remotes paired with a Hue Hub Emulator running on Raspberry Pi integrated into ISY.
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Insteon 8 button remotes integrated with ISY.
Both 1 and 2 have ways on the ISY controller to interact with smart or “dumb” things in my house - including “dumb” things (RF / IR) that a BOND Bridge allows me to make pseudo smart.
As a bonus, I have also used hardwired switches and keypads at room entries to programmatically integrate with the same mixture of devices.
I can go into more detail if you’d like, but basically boils down to a dedicated controller system that can integrate many different protocols is fairly essential to do what you ask, as those kind of basic remotes are typically very power limited in terms of both battery and processing abilities.
Could be Z-Wave, Insteon, etc - my setup works for me but there are pros and cons for any system and integrations.
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