Make Cubieboard a Music Box with IR remote

Cubieboard series have support for infra-red (IR) support and analog sound ouput. Together with mplayer & LIRC, Cubieboard could be turned into a great music box.

• A Cubieboard (1,2,3 are ok, theoretically)
• An IR remote (NEC compatible remote, like usual TV remote)
• Debian/Lubuntu Linux with IR support

Select the sunxi IR support in kernel config, it's straightforward.

  <*> Device Drivers  --->  
    <*> Input device support  ---> 
      <*> Keyboards  ---> 
      <*> sunxi IR support

If you compile the sunxi IR support as a module, it would be sunxi-ir.ko

If your kernel has already support IR feature, you can test the IR device interface.

root@Cubieboard1:~# dmesg | grep -i  sunxi-ir
[    2.254701] input: sunxi-ir as /devices/virtual/input/input0

If you see the above line, /dev/input/event0 should be the IR device interface.

It is time to test your IR remote and get the keycodes.

root@Cubieboard1 ~# cat /dev/input/event0 | hexdump

Grasp your remote pointing to Cubieboad IR receiver and press a key, watch the output and last three columns, maybe like this

0000000 c0d6 528c c81c 0000 0001 0009 0001 0000
0000010 c0d6 528c c830 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0000020 c0d6 528c 9c3f 0004 0001 0009 0000 0000
0000030 c0d6 528c 9c51 0004 0000 0000 0000 0000
0000040 c0d7 528c 3275 0001 0001 0015 0001 0000
0000050 c0d7 528c 3292 0001 0000 0000 0000 0000
0000060 c0d7 528c 272b 0004 0001 0015 0000 0000
0000070 c0d7 528c 273e 0004 0000 0000 0000 0000

Pay attention to digits such as "0009", "0015", yes, they are the remote keycode, and you'd better write them down. Take notice that these keycodes are hexadecimal value.

root@Cubieboard1:~# apt-get install lirc mplayer

LIRC is a package that allows you to decode and send infra-red signals of many (but not all) commonly used remote controls (http://www.lirc.org/). The configuration for Cubieboard is a little bit complicated, which involes 4 files. Let's do it step by step.

Create a udev rule file, like * /etc/udev/rules.d/10-cubie-ir.rules * whose content is as follows

SUBSYSTEM=="input", ACTION=="add", KERNEL=="event*", ATTRS{name}=="sunxi-ir", SYMLINK+="input/cubieir"

Modify the /etc/lirc/hardware.conf now, modify the following lines

#Try to load appropriate kernel modules
LOAD_MODULES=true

# Run "lircd --driver=help" for a list of supported drivers.
DRIVER="devinput"
# usually /dev/lirc0 is the correct setting for systems using udev 
DEVICE="/dev/input/cubieir"
MODULES="sunxi-ir"

Edit /etc/lirc/lircd.conf in your case. The codes section should be altered according to your own keycodes definitions, and they are in decimal form.

begin remote
	name            devinput
	bits            16
	eps             30
	aeps            100
	pre_data_bits   16
	pre_data        0x0001
	post_data_bits  32
	post_data       0x00000001
	gap             132799
	toggle_bit      0

	begin codes
		POWER                   69
		MUTE                    71
		VOLUME+                 9
		VOLUME-                 21
		MODE                    70
		MOUSE                   109
		HOME                    108
		BACK                    110
		LEFT                    100
		RIGHT                   101
		UP                      102
		DOWN                    103
		OK                      105
		STOP                    106
		PLAY                    68
		SHUFFLE                 25
		PREV                    64
		NEXT                    67
		RED                     185
		GREEN                   178
		YELLOW                  173
		BLUE                    172
		EQ			7
		1                       12
		2                       24
		3                       94
		4                       8
		5                       28
		6                       90
		7                       66
		8                       82
		9                       74
		0                       22
		AUDIO                   168
		USD                	13
	end codes
end remote

The above keycode definitions are for the IR remote like this

Edit /etc/lirc/lircrc.conf in your case.

begin
     button = VOLUME+
     prog = mplayer
     config = volume 1
     repeat = 1
end

begin
    button = VOLUME-
    prog = mplayer
    config = volume -1
    repeat = 1
end

begin
    button = PLAY
    prog = mplayer
    config = pause
end

begin
    button = MUTE
    prog = mplayer
    config = mute
end

begin
    button = POWER
    prog = mplayer
    config = stop
end

begin
    button = NEXT
    prog = mplayer
    config = pt_step +1
end

begin
    button = PREV
    prog = mplayer
    config = pt_step -1
end

#----------------------------

begin
    button = 0
    prog = irexec
    config = start_mplayer.sh
end

begin
    button = SHUFFLE
    prog = irexec
    config = start_mplayer.sh rescan
end

Mplayer has well support for LIRC, but we still need do some work to make it functional like a music box. We intend to make mplayer scan some specified directory (on Cubieboard or network-sharing directory), picking out those supported music files, like ape, flac, mp3, ogg etc., and play them in a shuffle way. Here goes the shell code snippet.

#!/bin/bash
# start_mplayer.sh
 
# Set this line in your case. A play.list file will be created in this directory, so make it writable.
MUSIC_PATH="/data/share/music"
PLAY_LIST="play.list"
MUSIC_TYPES="mp3 wav ape ogg flac";
 
if [ ! -e "${MUSIC_PATH}/${PLAY_LIST}" ] || ( [ $# -gt 0 ] && [ $1 == "rescan" ] ); then
    echo "" >  ${MUSIC_PATH}/${PLAY_LIST}
    for music_type in $MUSIC_TYPES ; do
        find ${MUSIC_PATH} -type f -iname "*.${music_type}" >> ${MUSIC_PATH}/${PLAY_LIST}
    done
fi
 
mplayer -lircconf /etc/lirc/lircrc.conf -vo null -shuffle -playlist  ${MUSIC_PATH}/${PLAY_LIST}

Assign this script with an executable bit, and test it.

# chmod +x start_mplayer.sh
# ./start_mplayer.sh rescan 

If mplayer is starting playing the music, good to go.

You can test LIRC with mplayer right now, with irexec, a convenient tool for running programs via LIRC.

# irexec -d /etc/lirc/lircrc.conf

Now, press your IR remote key, enjoy the music comes from Cubieboard.

If you would like the program running in a daemon style, add the fowlling line into /etc/rc.local, right before "exit 0".

sudo /usr/bin/irexec -d /etc/lirc/lircrc.conf
## If there is no "sudo", irexec won't work, which is weird.