atv2kodi

a small utility i hacked together one evening because my old apple tv couldn’t run netflix anymore. i had a raspberry pi with kodi, always liked the feel of the apple tv remote, so i wanted to reuse it. an esp8266 with an ir receiver was lying around, so i made it translate the apple tv ir signals into kodi json-rpc over wifi.
of course apple had to slightly mess with the nec protocol, so i had to decode it manually instead of just using a library.

hardware

• esp8266 board (nodemcu, wemos d1 mini, etc.)
• demodulating ir receiver, output wired to gpio14 (d5)

build

platformio

pipx install platformio
git clone https://github.com/objz/atv2kodi.git
cd atv2kodi
pio run -t upload
pio device monitor

arduino ide

• install esp8266 board support via boards manager
• install arduinojson (v6)
• open src/main.cpp and upload

config

edit these in main.cpp before building:

const char* WIFI_SSID = "your-wifi";
const char* WIFI_PASS = "your-pass";
const char* KODI_HOST = "192.168.x.x";
const int   KODI_PORT = 8080;

after uploading press RST to restart the device. make sure kodi has “allow remote control via http” enabled.

status

works fine with apple tv 2 remote. tested on kodi 20.x and esp8266 nodemcu.

wiring

ir receiver → esp8266:

ir pin	esp8266 pin
vcc	3v3
gnd	gnd
out	d5 (gpio14)

diagram:

other boards

should also work on esp32 or similar, but you’ll have to change the gpio number in main.cpp and pick the right board in platformio/arduino ide. timings might need tweaking too. basically: doable, but you’re on your own.