home-assistant.github.io/source/_components/keyboard_remote.markdown

layout	title	description	date	sidebar	comments	sharing	footer	logo	ha_category	ha_release	ha_iot_class
page	Keyboard Remote	Instructions how to use a keyboard to remote control Home Assistant.	2016-09-28 14:39	true	false	true	true	keyboard.png	Other	0.29	Local Push

Receive signals from a keyboard and use it as a remote control.

This component allows you to use a keyboard as remote control. It will fire keyboard_remote_command_received events which can then be used in automation rules.

The evdev package is used to interface with the keyboard and thus this is Linux only. It also means you can't use your normal keyboard for this because evdev will block it.

# Example configuration.yaml entry
keyboard_remote:
  device_descriptor: '/dev/input/event12'
  type: 'key_up'

Configuration variables:

• device_descriptor (Required): Path to the local event input device file that corresponds to the keyboard.
• type (Required): Possible values are key_up, key_down, and key_hold. Be careful, key_hold will fire a lot of events.

And an automation rule to breathe life into it:

automation:
  alias: Keyboard all lights on
  trigger:
    platform: event
    event_type: keyboard_remote_command_received
    event_data:
      key_code: 107 # inspect log to obtain desired keycode
  action:
    service: light.turn_on
    entity_id: light.all

{% linkable_title Disconnections %}

This component manages disconnections and re-connections of the keyboard, for example in the case of a bluetooth device that turns off automatically to preserve battery.

If the keyboard disconnects, the component will fire an event keyboard_remote_disconnected. When the keyboard reconnects an event keyboard_remote_connected will be fired.

Here's an automation example that plays a sound through a media player whenever the keyboard connects/disconnects:

automation:
  - alias: Keyboard Connected
    trigger:
      platform: event
      event_type: keyboard_remote_connected
    action:
      - service: media_player.play_media
        data:
          entity_id: media_player.speaker
          media_content_id: keyboard_connected.wav
          media_content_type: music
  - alias: Keyboard Disconnected
    trigger:
      platform: event
      event_type: keyboard_remote_disconnected
    action:
      - service: media_player.play_media
        data:
          entity_id: media_player.speaker
          media_content_id: keyboard_disconnected.wav
          media_content_type: music

{% linkable_title Permissions %}

There might be permissions problems with the event input device file. If this is the case, the user that hass runs as must be allowed read and write permissions with:

sudo setfacl -m u:HASS_USER:rw /dev/input/event*

where HASS_USER is the user hass runs as and event* is the event input device file your keyboard is connected to.

If you want to make this permanent, you can use a udev rule that sets it for your event input device. Add a file /etc/udev/rules.d/99-userdev-input.rules containing:

KERNEL=="event*", SUBSYSTEM=="input", RUN+="/usr/bin/setfacl -m u:HASS_USER:rw $env{DEVNAME}"

You can check the ACLs permission with

getfacl /dev/input/event*