Broadlink Support

Not sure if it might help but broadlink published some API info on this link:
https://docs.ibroadlink.com/public/appsdk_en/

Thanks! I wasn’t even aware they had an official API. I was just going to search online & see what others were doing. I do see that you need to sign up in order to use it. Presumably to generate some OAuth keys. I can’t sign in though with my Broadlink account. I’m curious if any of you guys can.
https://dnakit.ibroadlink.com/#/login

I can login, but the site request to apply for some information in order to ‘approve’ the user as ‘personal developer’ and it requires to summit evidence of previous works as developer, but I do not have such experience as developer… :frowning:
Maybe you can try login selecting ‘other’ as territory.

Yeah, no luck with “other” either. I just created my Broadlink account today. Maybe it hasn’t completely registered yet. I’ll try again tomorrow.

The thing is, when I click register button on that webpage it assumes I have a telephone number with country code 86 for China. That’s why I’m wondering if maybe this is only available to Chinese accounts.

Please try creating an account using an email instead of phone numbers on the user field.

I am using my email, not phone number. I’m talking about this form. It’s got a “+86” entry that cannot be changed.

https://signup.ibroadlink.com/#/

Ohh, I see, it might worth a try to insert any 11 digits there, perhaps the same broadlink number?( +86 571 85159281 )

but not sure why you need to use that signup page… I created my account using the ‘Broadlink’ app with an email and password, then just signin ussing that account into the ‘dnakit’ page

That didn’t work. What I’m gonna try to do is create a new account in the Broadlink app resisted on the China server. Just out of curiosity, where are you from? What region did you select when you created your Broadlink account?

I created 3 different accounts using their app. One on each server: American, European, Chinese. None of these accounts are able to log into that web page. I’m not sure what the deal is. Here’s the app I used to create the accounts:

Hi! the app is correct. In the app I am using America Server, country Dominican Republic.
I have several accounts but it seems only one of my account can login successfully there and it is the older account for over 5 years! I created that account using broadlink e-control app and also used it with broadlink ihc app.

… maybe the best way is contacting broadlink directly. This video talks about their dnakit:

an email is listed there for support on that subject: andy@ibroadlink.com

Thanks, I can shoot him an email. Although I’m beginning to have some doubts about whether this will even help us. That video you shared seemed to be geared towards hardware manufacturers. I wonder if this is more like an Alexa Skills SDK. By that I mean, we use their SDK to make our devices compatible with their app. Kind of the opposite of what we want which is to make their devices compatible with our app.

It’s worth looking into though. Most of the integrations I’ve found online do not have a way to download your configured IR & RF devices from the Broadlink cloud. We’d pretty much have to reteach & reconfigure everything which could be a bit of a pain. I’d love to avoid that if possible. I’m hoping this SDK will let us download the user’s devices from the Broadlink hub or cloud.

@deathwh1sper Andy replied back right away to my email. That SDK is only available to Chinese developers that are selling their Broadlink products.

Back to the original plan. Control is still possible but you’ll just have to reteach all of your IR & RF commands. I have found some IR databases online that can help this process.

yes, the local code learning is a common factor for most of the broadlink integrations in another platforms, but I think most of users can bear with that in favor of the possibility to achieve local control.

I wonder if it might be easier or not take the avantage of another software which already integrated broadlink locally, for example: homebridge which allows using broadlink devices with apple homekit

I agree with Deathwhisper, relearning all ir/rf commands is much better than nothing!

Noticed that Home Assistant seems to include also a Broadlink Integration for local control. Maybe a reasonable way might be to integrate HA instead?

Home Assistant support is definitely something I plan on adding but I’m sure there will still be people that want a direct integration as well.

I plan to start working on Broadlink very soon. Hopefully in the next week or 2.

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There was a major detail that I missed during my initial research. For me to connect & authenticate with these devices, they’d have to be removed from your BroadLink account. That means that not only would you no longer be able to control them with the official BroadLink app, but you wouldn’t be able to control them with Alexa or Google Assistant either.

In light of this new discovery, I think I’m going to postpone the direct integration. I feel there won’t be enough individuals that’d be willing to go through all these hurdles & lose voice support in the process.

Instead, I’m going to propose some indirect solutions:

  1. I’ll add the ability to have Alexa send any voice command as text. Currently the Home Remote’s Alexa integration is all voice based & is done using the microphone. I’ll add support that’ll let you send Broadlink commands with text so you can link them to Buttons on any custom page.

  2. I’ll add support for Home Assistant. As @deathwh1sper mentioned earlier, Home Assistant already supports BroadLink so we can control it through their integration. Yes, with HA you’ll also have to unpair your BroadLink devices from the official BroadLink apps, but HA has their own skills for Alexa & Google Assistant so you won’t have to worry about losing voice control.

I’ll work on this now. Not only will these solutions provide a way to control BroadLink from the Home Remote but they’ll be quicker for me to develop. I’m not saying no to a future “direct” BroadLink integration. I’m just saying I’m going to complete these 2 updates 1st.

For Broadlink direct then I would wait until next day … because I am not using HA and I cannot add a Raspberry yet, Alexa in text command is not also available in all countries.