Getting Started With The Wire Utility

Wire is a command line utility that interfaces with any IR (infrared) capable Global Caché^® iTach device. Its purpose is to capture the IR codes that are learned from existing remote controls. These IR codes are saved in a text file for later playback to simulate the operation of the remote’s buttons.

Wire serves the same purpose as the iLearn program from Global Caché. The difference being that Wire runs on Linux and iLearn does not. It has been tested with the iTach model IP2IR and should also work with WF2IR and IP2IR-P models. Wire supports the standard Global Caché file format. It does not currently support the HEX or compressed file formats.

You can start by downloading Wire from here:

Download Wire

Install the downloaded Wire tarball:

user@boxen:~$ tar -xvzf wire.tar.gz

ncat and sleepenh are required by the Wire set of tools. Ncat is included in the nmap package. If either of these is not already installed on your Ubuntu/Debian Linux then do this now:

user@boxen:~$ sudo apt-get install nmap sleepenh

Run the Wire command from its installation directory with an option to specify the IP address of your iTach device.

user@boxen:~/Wire$ ./wire -i 192.168.1.100
Wagner IR Extractor, v2.0
Attempting to contact iTach device at 192.168.1.100:4998

Select menu item:
1) Choose remote
2) Learn a button
3) Save a button
4) Delete a button
5) List saved buttons
6) Test button IR
7) Exit

Remote[default] Command (1-7)?

Note the prompt asking for a choice of menu numbers between ‘1’ and ‘7’. That same line shows that the current remote control is “default”. Select ‘1’ from the menu to choose a different remote control, or create a new one. We’ll create a new one called “My TV”.

Remote[default] Command (1-7)? 1

Choose a remote:
1) NEW REMOTE
2) Comcast_3067BC2-R
3) Toshiba_SD-V296

Select remote (1-3)? 1
Enter remote name: My TV

Remote[My TV] Command (1-7)?

Next we will add a button to our new remote. When asked to press a button, aim your remote at the sensor on the iTach device and hold the button down for at least a second. You will need to do this a minimum of three times for each button.

Remote[My TV] Command (1-7)? 2

Press remote button
 1: got it   ... Press button again
 2: good go  ... Press button again
 3: good go  ... last one
Button capture successful

Remote[My TV] Command (1-7)?

Now you need to give the button a name by saving it.

Remote[My TV] Command (1-7)? 3

Enter button name: Power
Button 'Power' saved

Remote[My TV] Command (1-7)?

Add more buttons by repeating the steps shown above as many times as needed.

Now you can show the status of all of the buttons saved for your remote.

Remote[My TV] Command (1-7)? 5

              Button  Carrier   Pulses    Burst   Spacer
------------------------------------------------------------------------
               Power  38226Hz       36    157ms    127ms

Remote[My TV] Command (1-7)?

You can test any of the buttons you have saved. This will send your saved button data out the IR emitter of the iTach device. If all goes well then your IR receiver (i.e., TV set) should react as though you pressed the button on your remote control.

Remote[My TV] Command (1-7)? 6

Select IR output connector:
1) Connector 1 [Mode: IR]
2) Connector 2 [Mode: IR]
3) Connector 3 [Mode: IR_BLASTER]

Connector (1-3)? 1

Enter comma separated list of buttons: Power
done

Remote[My TV] Command (1-7)?

For all of the nitty-gritty details of these and other Wire commands you should check out the Wire Command Reference document .