I have a faux Christmas Tree from Home Depot. Before the remote for it gets lost, I wanted to clone the signal from its IR transmitter so that I can use my Flipper Zero to back up and change up the tree’s color into the future.
Sounds simple, right?
However, this turned out to be a little more interesting!
TL;DR - if your remote’s FCC ID is 2AISHYLM-M2 - you can use .sub Sub-GHz file download: download. It is not IR and instead is transmitting on 433Mhz in the ISM band!
It’s not actually IR
Trying the IR (infrared) copying tool on the flipper, doesn’t work for this remote.
As it turns out, the remote doesn’t use IR at all. The LED on the front glows blue. I originally assumed that this was either a defect of the LED or the LED still emitted light in the IR spectrum. However, I confirmed this is not the case.
Although the LED flashes with what I assume is the code for activating the tree, it is essentially not required. Covering the LED entirely doesn’t impact the performance of the remote. Perhaps early on in design, the intent was to go with IR, and it didn’t perform well. So they updated the board to also transmit wirelessly, retaining the original case and LED design.
Researching the FCC ID
Since the FCC ID is written on the back of the remote (2AISHYLM-M2), I looked it up online, and read through the documentation. Trying to avoid breaking the single functional remote I had, I wanted to avoid disassembling it.
This is the internal photo from the FCC registration. We see the RF antenna looping around the board.
The scope also notes the following:
A1: Low Power Transmitters below 1 GHz (except Spread Spectrum), Unintentional Radiators, EAS (Part 11) & Consumer ISM devices
I wonder if we can use the Sub-GHz module in the Flipper Zero instead?
Frequency Analyzer
The Sub-GHz frequency analyzer reports the remote working on 433Mhz. Perfect.
Sub-GHz?
Based on this - we can then use the “Read Raw” 433.92Mhz settings with AM650 modulation. I was able to record and replay the RF signals from the remote successfully!
For someone on the internet who has lost their remote but has a Flipper Zero, today’s your lucky day. You can download them captured files below.
In the filenames: “S” (e.g. “STwinkle”) means slow, “F” means fast, “MLT” = “Multicolor” and “WW” = “Warm White”, the colors of my tree. You must transmit an “On” signal before changing colors. I tried to abbreviate so they’ll still show on the Flipper’s small screen.
Additional Notes
You can note above the functions I have on my remote - other pictures from the internet of this remote show different configurations. I imagine this unit is built and shipped in different configurations. If yours is slightly different and wish to capture the .sub files for it, shoot me an email - I can add them to the collection and credit you here!
