Remote Transmitter: add Ruwido r-step protocol

[dutchelectron]

Component name

Remote Transmitter

Link to component documentation on our website

https://esphome.io/components/remote_transmitter/

Describe the enhancement

Hello,

I would like to have the r-step protocol added for Ruwido IR remote controllers. In the Netherlands telecommunication provider KPN uses Ruwido remotes for their set-top boxes so with 3.6 million users there are a lot of people with these remotes.

Internet did not provide me all the information needed to implement my remote in esphome, but with the help of my oscilloscope I got it figured out. So to be clear: the reverse engineering work on the encoding is already done. I changed two parts of the canalsatld protocol to get it working, see the "anything else" section below for the details. I'm very willing to help out writing the code for the new protocol, but I have to say that I do not have experience with c++.

A note on the already available CanalSatLD protocol:
An option is to change the CanalSatLD protocol as it is said to be the same as the r-step protocol but then it is not implemented in the right way at the moment. According to https://www.hifi-remote.com/wiki/index.php?title=DecodeIR#CanalSatLD "The official name for CanalSatLD is "ruwido r-step"". I have an old Ruwido remote that exactly matches the "1,-1,D:7,S:6,T:1,0:1,F:6,~F:1" bit encoding. But I also have a new Ruwido remote that needs a "1,-1,D:7,S:6,T:1,F:8" bit encoding due to an added Netflix button. As said the canalsatld protocol can be made suitable for the ruwido remote by two changes.
However I can totally imagine that no-one wants to change an existing protocol implementation, potentially breaking other peoples setups.

That being said: it is probably best to add a new protocol, which could be called ruwido, r-step or a combination of both for instance.

I have attached the only document I could find on the r-step protocol, but reverse engineering of the codes of my remote show that there are some minor differences with the document.
r-step.pdf

Use cases

My use case is to have the remote control of my interactive television set-top box in Home Assistant, allowing me to control it from my phone or laptop when my wife and kids lost the remote again (and again...).

Having the remote in HA off-course also enables writing automations, to turn on the television on a certain channel when one comes out off bed, arrives at home, etc. etc.

Anything else?

I changed the following in canalsat_protocol.h to make it work for ruwido remote control:

1. Change length of command field in CanalSatData struct from 7 to 8 bits to accomodate for the 0x81 code of the Netflix button.

struct CanalSatData {
  ...
  uint8_t command : 8;

I changed the following in canalsat_protocol.cpp to make it work for ruwido remote control:

1. Added a log action for debugging
2. Changed the composition of the raw data
3. Changed the starting bitmask from 0x800000 to 0x400000 to send 23 bits instead of 24 bits.

void CanalSatBaseProtocol::encode(RemoteTransmitData *dst, const CanalSatData &data) {
  ESP_LOGV(CANALSAT_TAG, "Sending canalsat: device=0x%02X, address=0x%02X, command=0x%02X",
           data.device, data.address, data.command);

  ...

  uint32_t raw{
      static_cast<uint32_t>((1 << 22) | (data.device << 15) | (data.address << 9) | data.command)};
  bool was_high{true};

  for (uint32_t mask = 0x400000; mask; mask >>= 1) {

The modulation frequency is 56.0 kHz, with a duty cycle (LED on-time) of 34%.
The unit time is 320 us, same as canalsatld protocol.

Note that the ruwido remote control also implements a repeat bit, setting it to 0 in the first frame and to 1 in the repeating frames. I did not implement that.

[dutchelectron]

Once the ruwido protocol is added I will share my esphome yaml code on the esphome forum so anyone can profit from the work done. Especially the reverse engineering of the codes of all the remote buttons by oscilloscope, which took considerable effort.

I have validated my implementation on a Arcadyan HMB2260 set-top box for "interactieve TV van KPN". Other KPN set-top boxes on which these esphome infrared remote control codes are expected to work are:

• Motorola VIP 1853
• Motorola VIP 1963
• Motorola VIP 1903
• Motorola VIP 1910
• Motorola VIP 1960
• Arris VIP 2952