Something Remote

A port of TheStockPot's Everything Remote to MicroPython, with changes that make it work much better on the Nvidia Shield by using a mix of BLE and Home Assistant.

Why BLE + Home Assistant?

I found the HA actions on the original for navigation on the Shield had much too high latency, so I reimplemented the main nav buttons using BLE. You pair the remote to the Shield as a bluetooth remote and it works with very similar performance to the original Shield remote.

For the HA actions I use MQTT auto-discovery with triggers for the buttons. To set up an automation in HA (after doing the WiFi setup including your MQTT broker), target the device as "Something Remote" and use the trigger dropdown to select the button you want. Remember to set the automation mode to "queued" if you want multiple presses to all process (e.g., for dimming a light).

I've also added an MPU6050 to enable lift to wake as I didn't like having to press the power button just to make another input. This is optional, if it's not found at boot then it will just use the power button in a similar way to the original. Ensure it's wired as stated below.

Re-pairing

• BLE: Hold Power + Back for 5 seconds
• WiFi/MQTT: Hold Shortcut1 + Shortcut3 for 5 seconds

Config

You can select whether the power button works over BLE or triggers a Home Assistant automation. This depends on your setup and whether you need to trigger other actions on power on/off. Configure this in the WiFi setup portal.

Hardware

• Everything Remote v1.1 board (ESP32 with 21 buttons)
• MPU6050 accelerometer for motion wake (optional)
  • SDA: GPIO33, SCL: GPIO22, INT: GPIO36 (VP)
• Battery voltage divider on GPIO39 (VN), optional — see below

Optional: Battery Monitoring Mod

The Everything Remote PCB uses a WEMOS LOLIN32 Lite V2 module, which has a TP4054 charger but no battery voltage divider routed to any GPIO. A small hardware mod adds one, then the device reports battery level, voltage, and a diagnostic raw ADC reading to Home Assistant.

Battery reporting is off by default — if you don't fit the mod, skip this section; nothing will appear in HA.

Cap and no cap options

No cap — 100 k / 100 k

   BAT+ (JST pad)
      │
     [R1 100k]
      │
      ├─────────► VN (GPIO39)
      │
     [R2 100k]
      │
     GND

Cap — 1 M / 1 M + 1 µF

   BAT+ (JST pad)
      │
     [R1 1M]
      │
      ├──────────┬────► VN (GPIO39)
      │          │
     [R2 1M]    [C 1µF]
      │          │
      └──────────┴──── GND

	No cap	Cap
Parts	2 × through-hole resistors	2 × resistors + 1 cap
Leakage @ 4.1 V	~21 µA	~2 µA
Cap	not needed	required (stabilises ADC sampling at high impedance)

Enabling it in firmware

Battery monitoring is gated by a config flag so boards without the mod aren't affected:

1. Hold Shortcut1 + Shortcut3 for 5 s to enter the setup portal.
2. Tick "Enable battery monitoring" at the bottom of the form.
3. Save — device reboots and three new entities appear on the Something Remote device in Home Assistant:
   • Battery (%)
   • Battery Voltage (V, diagnostic)
   • Battery ADC Raw (µV, diagnostic)

Features

• BLE HID - Keyboard and Consumer Control for Shield navigation
• Home Assistant - MQTT integration with auto-discovery
• Power Management - Light sleep and deep sleep with motion wake
• Captive Portal - WiFi/MQTT setup via browser

Quick Start - Flashing Pre-built Firmware

Download

Get something-remote-firmware.bin from Releases.

Flash

1. Connect board via USB and find the port:

   • Linux: /dev/ttyUSB0
   • Mac: /dev/cu.usbserial-*
   • Windows: COMx (check Device Manager → Ports)

2. Erase and flash:

   # Using uv (recommended - no install needed)
   uvx esptool --port /dev/ttyUSB0 erase_flash
   uvx esptool --port /dev/ttyUSB0 write_flash 0x0 something-remote-firmware.bin
   
   # Or using pip
   pip install esptool
   esptool.py --port /dev/ttyUSB0 erase_flash
   esptool.py --port /dev/ttyUSB0 write_flash 0x0 something-remote-firmware.bin

3. Configure: Connect to "SomethingRemote-Setup" WiFi (password: 12345678), enter your WiFi and MQTT settings

4. Pair: See Pairing with Shield below

Button Combos

Combo	Hold Time	Action
Power + Back	5 seconds	Clear BLE bonds and reset device (for re-pairing)
Shortcut1 + Shortcut3	5 seconds	Enter WiFi/MQTT setup portal

Button Mapping

BLE HID (Shield Control)

• D-pad: Up/Down/Left/Right arrows
• Select: Enter
• Back: Consumer Control Back (AC Back)
• Home: Consumer Control Home (AC Home)
• Play/Pause, Vol+, Vol-, Mute: Consumer Control media keys
• Ch+/Ch-: Page Up/Down

Home Assistant (MQTT)

• Power: power action
• Shortcuts 1-4: shortcut_1 to shortcut_4 actions
• Brightness +/-: brightness_up/brightness_down actions

Setup

First Time Setup

1. Flash firmware (see Build section)
2. Device creates WiFi AP: "Something Remote Setup"
3. Connect to AP, browser opens setup page
4. Enter WiFi credentials and MQTT broker details
5. Device restarts and connects

Pairing with Shield

1. Hold Power + Back for 5 seconds to clear bonds and reset
2. On Shield: Settings → Remote & Accessories → Add Accessory
3. Select "Something Remote"

Re-entering Setup

Hold Shortcut1 + Shortcut3 for 5 seconds.

Power Management

• 30 seconds idle (disconnected) → Passive advertising (100ms interval)
• 2 minutes passive advertising → Deep sleep (~10µA)
• Wake: Power button or motion sensor (if MPU6050 installed)
• While connected: stays awake at 160MHz for responsive HID
• While idle: drops to 80MHz to save power
• Total idle-to-deep-sleep: ~2.5 minutes

Build

Prerequisites

# ESP-IDF v5.2.x
cd ~
git clone -b v5.2.2 --recursive https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf.git
cd esp-idf && ./install.sh esp32 && source export.sh

# MicroPython
cd ~
git clone https://github.com/micropython/micropython.git
cd micropython && git checkout v1.24.1 && git submodule update --init
make -C mpy-cross

Build & Flash

./build.sh
./flash.sh /dev/ttyUSB0

Project Structure

├── board/ATOM_ECHO/        # MicroPython board definition
├── modules/                # Python code (frozen into firmware)
│   ├── shield_remote.py    # Main application
│   ├── hid_services.py     # BLE HID implementation
│   ├── hid_keystores.py    # BLE bonding key storage
│   ├── ha_client.py        # Home Assistant MQTT client
│   ├── wifi_setup.py       # Captive portal for setup
│   ├── config.py           # Configuration storage
│   ├── mpu6050_wake.py     # Accelerometer motion wake
│   ├── logger.py           # File-based logging
│   └── main.py             # Entry point
├── build.sh                # Build script
└── flash.sh                # Flash script

Troubleshooting

• Can't pair: Hold Power + Back 5 sec to clear bonds (device will reset), then retry
• Can't see in Shield menu: Check Shield's location_mode and BLE Privacy settings (see below)
• iOS won't reconnect: Forget "Something Remote" in iOS Bluetooth settings, then re-pair
• WiFi issues: Hold Shortcut1 + Shortcut3 5 sec to re-enter setup
• Debug output: screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200
• Stale bonds: If the device can't connect after switching centrals, wait 30s for auto-clear

Shield TV BLE Fix

If the Shield can't find BLE devices, its location_mode may have silently reset:

adb shell settings put secure location_mode 3
adb shell settings put global ble_scan_always_enabled 1
adb reboot

Also disable Bluetooth LE Privacy in Shield Settings → Security & Restrictions.

License

BLE HID library adapted from MicroPythonBLEHID (GPL-3.0).