Home Assistant IR proxy
Home Assistant 2026.4 added an infrared integration that uses an inexpensive IR proxy to turn old IR‑controlled devices into smart devices for under $10, letting you control legacy TVs and remotes from your automation hub (howtogeek.com). That creates a low‑cost path to integrate decades‑old consumer electronics into local, non‑cloud automations without replacing the hardware (howtogeek.com).
Infrared is the line-of-sight signal old remotes use, and Home Assistant 2026.4 now lets that signal flow through cheap local hardware into automations. (home-assistant.io) The update landed on April 1, 2026, with a new Infrared integration in Home Assistant Core 2026.4. Home Assistant says it turns televisions, air conditioners, fans, sound bars, and other infrared-controlled devices into controllable devices inside the platform. (home-assistant.io) Home Assistant’s documentation describes the new feature as a building-block integration: hardware such as an ESPHome transmitter exposes an infrared entity, and brand-specific integrations use that entity to send commands. The infrared entity is stateless except for a timestamp showing the last transmission. (home-assistant.io) That changes the old setup, where many users relied on generic infrared blasters, learned codes by hand, and tied them together with scripts or YAML configuration. A new Home Assistant 2026.4 bridge for Broadlink devices describes the old method as manually learning codes and calling `remote.send_command` with device and command names. (github.com) ESPHome, the firmware Home Assistant users often load onto small Wi-Fi boards, now includes an experimental IR and radio-frequency proxy component that can transmit and receive signals through a unified application programming interface. ESPHome says that lets Home Assistant learn and replay commands at runtime without reflashing firmware. (esphome.io) The low-cost pitch comes from hardware built for that workflow. How-To Geek reported on April 11 that Seeed Studio’s XIAO Smart IR Mate sells for under $10 and can be flashed from a browser through ESPHome Ready-Made Projects. (howtogeek.com) ESPHome’s Ready-Made Projects page says those browser installs require no programming or extra software. Seeed Studio lists the XIAO Smart IR Mate at $9.99, says it uses an ESP32-C3 chip, and says it can learn up to 10 commands with three infrared emitters for 360-degree coverage. (esphome.io) (seeedstudio.com) Home Assistant is also starting to ship device-specific infrared controls on top of the new layer. The core repository now includes an `lg_infrared` component, and the project’s release notes say infrared support is becoming a “first-class citizen” inside Home Assistant. (github.com) (home-assistant.io) The practical effect is simple: a television from 2008 or an air conditioner with only a handheld remote can now sit in the same local automation system as newer smart devices, without a cloud account or a hardware replacement. That keeps infrared, a 1980s-era control method, in the middle of a 2026 smart-home stack. (home-assistant.io 1) (home-assistant.io 2)
