Can BrightSign players send IR commands?

Do you recommend any other IR Blaster? The link you provided says the product is currently unavailable.

Stereo IR Blasters seem to be quite rare.

Would a Stereo to Mono adapter work?

I just got this one today, but I haven't gotten it to work yet.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005IR3KDE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Are there any updates to this as far as a compatible IR blasters that have been used and are still in production? The Amazon link referenced is still showing unavailable, and I would prefer to not just start buying a bunch of random things off the internet without having some idea whether they will work with BrightSign or not.

Looking to automate the TV power with my presentation(s) to turn them off at the end of business hours and back on the next day. None of the HDMI-embedded control options seem to work with my TVs, leaving me with an IR-based control option. My preference would be to simply connect the player to a commonly available small IR flasher (which would have a 3.5mm mono connector), and not utilize a blaster which is typically installed inside a cabinet and not on a customer-facing device. Could one manufacture their own 3.5mm stereo male to 3.5mm mono female adapter and achieve this? Is this possible, or is there more to it? If possible, does anyone have the proper wiring schematic for this to ensure the proper contacts and polarity? Are there any other ways of using the IR output for TV power control?

Does your TV have a CEC HDMI port? If not, it is possible to do with IR. I finally got the IR to work, after a lot of trial and error. I'm sending IR commands to RGB lights to change their colors and turn them off and on. 

I have tried the CEC HDMI commands, but had no luck with them either putting the display to sleep/waking it up, or turning it on/off, thus the reason for moving to the IR control option.

I am encouraged by the fact you have gotten IR control to work. Could you tell me what you are using for the IR device to emit the signal? Is it a standard IR flasher with a 3.5mm mono connector, a blaster with a 3.5mm stereo connector, or some combination of multiple things?

Thanks!

I used a standard 3.5mm mono IR emitter from Amazon and plugged that into the IR port on the BrightSign. The lights have an IR receiver, and I put that with the emitter into a project box so they would not receive or cause any interference with any other IR device.

The trick, for me, was figuring out the codes to pass to it. They were not published and the manufacturer was not helpful. I eventually had to plug an IR receiver into my sound card, aim the remote at it, record the results, and then go through the process of decoding each signal. It was a pain. 

That's interesting. I have tried a standard 3.5mm mono IR emitter on my BrightSign unit and did not have any luck with it flashing. (I did confirm that it is a visible emitter, so I should be able to see the blink when any code is emitted. Even if the code is incorrect for my TV.) The TV manufacturer has the HEX codes published in my case, which I was very happy about. I took those codes and put them into BrightAuthor as a Send command, with the Send IR Remote (Pronto) selected from the drop down, and then pasted the selected IR code into the parameters box. (Hex code in my case: 0000 006D 0022 0002 0156 00AC 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015) I created this under a time/clock event that would execute daily at 7:50AM to turn on the TV, and created another one to execute at 5:05PM daily to turn the TVs back off. For testing purposes, I changed it to execute the code every minute instead of at 7:50AM, and I saw no flash of any kind from the emitter. Is there something that I am missing? Appreciate your help/time!

I think the real trick is getting the right emitter. Mine are not visible. I have to use my phone's camera to watch the emitters to see them blink. Everything else sounds right. I used Pronto and the codes I would send were similar but a lot longer. Turning the lights on, for example, is 0000 006C 0000 0022 015B 00AD 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0041 0016 0041 0016 0041 0016 0041 0016 0041 0016 0041 0016 0041 0016 0041 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0041 0016 0041 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0041 0016 0041 0016 0041 0016 0016 0016 0016 0016 0041 0016 0041 0016 0041 0016 05F7. 

I would first watch the emitter with a camera to see if they do anything. Feel free to copy the above code and see if that will light up your emitter.

After you made the comment that your hex code was longer than mine, it occurred to me that my code was much longer than what I posted as well. Discovered that the PDF I coped it from must have had carriage returns in it, which truncated my copy/paste to only provide me the first line of hex in my presentation, despite selecting 5 lines of hex code from the PDF. Updated the code I was attempting to send for my TV to have all 5 lines, plus added an additional command afterwards to send your hex code right after mine. Published file, same results, no blinking with or without a camera. What I find interesting is that when I remove or apply power to the player, it will provide a quick blink of the IR flasher in both cases which indicates to me that I do have polarity of the 3.5mm plug correct, that the flasher is visible, and that the unit is capable of sending some form of voltage out of the IR port. I just am not seeing why I can't seem to get it to send anything from within the presentation/on command?

My new (corrected) TV hex code: 0000 006D 0022 0002 0156 00AC 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0040 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 00150 015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0040 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0040 0015 0015 0015 0040 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0015 0040 0015 0015 0015 0040 0015 0015 0015 0040 0015 0040 0015 0040 0015 0040 0015 06F1 0156 0056 0015 0E50

I tried your hex code and I can't see my emitter lighting up. My code works. But if my code doesn't work with your emitter, then I think it might be the emitter you have.

Could be right! Do you happen to have the link, or make/model of the IR emitter that you purchased so that I can try getting an identical one in hand to see if I can get it to emit anything with both my code and yours?

Thank you for your help yesterday!

My pleasure, Joey! I'll see if I can find the link to the specific emitters I bought. I just looked at the emitter itself and can't find any brand or marking. Let me do some digging.

I have done some further testing with mine (trying different polarity, pin configurations, etc) using your hex code (since you have verified it will work with your player) and just can't seem to have any luck on my end. I'm guessing that my IR flasher just isn't compatible with BrightSign for some reason, I just don't know what to order instead that would be compatible is my issue. Have you had any luck trying to track down a manufacturer/link for the one that you are using? (Or does anyone else have a blaster that they can confirm works and is still being manufactured?)

Thank you for your help!

Hi Joey and Chris,

I tried all the methods to trigger the bright sign using IR blaster and I got one 3.5mm IR emitter/receiver but still didn't work for me as I'm controlling them as a zone message by providing external IR Value Checker plugin, providing hex code but nothing works for me. 

Any help would be appreciable if you guys got any update or any luck so far. 

This faq has been updated to correct the incorrect post that player's IR port is stereo.  Current players, at least, are mono. 

Has anybody has trouble sending consecutive IR codes?

I am able to send every channel number I want to the remote cable box, in order to change the channel. Though, it seems to have trouble sending double or triple digit codes.

Any suggestions? I have tried quite a few sequences with ending the codes (enter, exit commands, timer commands)

Unfortunately my logs have stopped producing on this unit since may 18th '21, so I cannot track the commands as easily as I would like. Any insight would be useful, thank you!

I have not tried sending multiple/consecutive codes from my BrightSign player to see how it handles it since I have not had an application to use it yet, but I did run into that issue quite a bit in my old custom A/V days, back when everything was still/largely IR controlled and macros had to be set up to turn on/set input/set volume all in one shot.

Most of the time it came from having not enough, or having too much of a delay between the characters/codes. Too long of a delay and channel 123 became channel 12 and then 3 or channel 1 and then 23 with no rhyme or reason, too short of a delay and it was a guess as to which code was actually picked up by the device. Sometimes none of them, sometimes one or two of them.

Similar to carrying on a conversation, the person speaking needs to have just the right amount of pause between sentences so the listener realizes its a new/different sentence (or code in this case). No pause and it's all just endless babble and you have no clue what they are saying, too much pause and it seems like everything is a new topic/doesn't make sense either.

If the hex codes you are using were learned in from an IR receiver, you may try re-learning them in a dark environment to make sure they are as clean/short as possible. If they are hex codes provided by the device manufacturer, my guess is that some additional space may be needed between the digits, so experiment with a short delay between each code and extend it until the device starts thinking that 123 is 1, then 2, then 3 (for example).

Hopefully that helps some!

Very much so! Thank you for the highly detailed explanation.

I happened to find the "other -> pause" commands after sending this out and it worked flawlessly.

Stepped them up to 500 milliseconds to do the trick.

Note to add.. We do have 2 other locations recently deployed that have been working relatively stable with some 2-digit channels. Though this will certainly help clean them up in the future.. especially with the 4-digit Channel's they have lined up next month.

Thanks again!!

How do you find out the NEC formatted integer values? I looked on www.remotecentral.com and it's not really set up to provide that answer over there.