Xfinity XR11 RF remote with Kodi (working)
#1
I have been on the hunt for a cheap physical remote with RF that I could interface with a PC and that has been surprisingly hard. Most of the RF remotes for computers only have transport controls and directional controls and a lot of time the volume controls are IR. I've also tried the PS3 remote and Xbox remotes. But they also use IR for the volume control which doesn't work for me. But finally I found the perfect solution. It's the Xfinity XR11 RF remote. It is RF and designed for the X1 DVR. Luckily Xfinity also sells an adapter that converts the RF to IR for use on older Xfinity set top boxes. It plugs in with a 3.5mm headphone jack on the back of the STB. So I was thinking I could probably plug this thing right into the back of a soundcard and use Lirc with the audio_alsa driver. Well it works perfect. The only hacky part is the adapter needs 5v and the mic input on a sound card doesn't supply enough power to satisfy it. The workaround was to take a headphone extension cable and a USB cable and splice them together. The XR8 pinout is like this:
Tip = 5v
Center = IR data
Base = Ground

So I cut the wire running to the tip and connected the end that was headed to the adapter to the 5v power from the USB cable. Nothing will be connected to the tip going into the sound card. Then I spliced (not cut) the ground from the USB to the ground on the headphone cable.

For Lirc simply use this config:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/u444275njxw6ua....conf?dl=0

And launch lircd like this
lircd --driver=audio_alsa --device=hw:0@44100,r lircd.conf

Notice the "r" after the sample rate. That tells it to only listen on the right channel. This is because the XR8 is only connected to the center pin which is the right channel.

After that you interface Lirc with Kodi just like you normally would.

Here are links for the remote and adapter:
Xfinity XR11 Remote ($10)
XR8 RF to IR Adapter ($5)


BTW, I was also able to get this rig working in windows using WinLIRC and the same config file.

I suspect I am not the only one on the hunt for a good RF remote that can interface with a PC. This remote is laid out nicely and also has a backlight that turns on when the remote is moved. The range is also really good and a single XR8 can be paired to 5 XR11's. You can't beat the price either.

The XR11 uses the Zigbee RF2CE protocol. I suspect one could also get a USB RF2CE adapter and delete the XR8. Right now there aren't many USB RF2CE adapters and I wasn't confident I could get one of them to pair with the XR11. So I went the XR8 route.
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#2
I would also like to use this remote. Do you know if a 3.5mm jack to usb would also work or could be made to work or would it have to go through the headphone jack?

Also how did you launch winlirc like stated? I,m new to Winlirc, so I haven't figured it out yet.
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Xfinity XR11 RF remote with Kodi (working)0