The physical remote for Home Assistant. If HA can control it, so can this.

PARAM KEY has twenty real buttons and a screen, and it has no device database of its own. Home Assistant does the thinking, so it controls everything your HA already does: media, lights, climate, scenes, scripts. An IR blaster covers the gear HA can't reach.

→ Join the beta list · Discuss on the Home Assistant forum

Why it's different

• HA is the device list. Give an entity the label remote and it shows up on the remote. Remap a key in HA, and it takes effect without a reflash.
• Hotkeys that follow context. Four keys are labelled live on the screen: now playing, the current room, the current mode.
• Local, no cloud. It uses ESP-NOW to reach a bridge, which is any ~$10 ESP32, flashed from your browser. The remote never joins your Wi-Fi.
• Secure by default. Every key press is encrypted and authenticated with the remote's own key, and a recorded press can't be played back. Pairing shows the same 6-digit code on the remote and in Home Assistant.
• Weeks per charge. It sleeps on the table and wakes when you pick it up: 2–3 weeks on a 1000 mAh cell, charged over USB-C. Its battery level reaches HA on every wake.
• IR for the rest. A blaster for gear HA can't reach, sending codes from Home Assistant's own IR library, so HA's IR integrations can use it too. v2 adds a receiver to learn codes from the remote it replaces.
• Yours to hack. The ESPHome firmware and the HA integration are MIT.

Status

Remote v1	In daily use
Remote v2	Boards in fab: fuel gauge, IR receiver, proper charge termination, sturdier case (FEA-checked). Its firmware follows the boards
HACS integration (param-key-homeassistant)	Bridges, pairing, IR, menus from labels, battery and settings. Next: a guided media setup
IR learning	With v2: the receiver is on the board, the learning software comes next
Room awareness	Next: one bridge per room, and the remote switches layout to the nearest one

How it works

 PARAM KEY  ──ESP-NOW──▶  bridge (ESPHome)  ──API──▶  Home Assistant  ──▶  your devices
    ▲                                                     │
    └──────────── screen content, hotkey labels ──────────┘

The remote sends key presses (press, long press, repeat) and shows whatever HA sends back. All mapping lives in HA, so the firmware stays generic.

Inside	v1	v2
MCU	ESP32-S3, ESPHome	same
Screen	2.0" 240×320	same
Keys	20: power, 4 hotkeys, d-pad, back/home/settings, volume, media	same
Radio	ESP-NOW to the bridge: two-way, acknowledged, encrypted	same
IR	940 nm blaster	blaster, plus a 38 kHz receiver for learning codes
Battery level	Estimated from the cell voltage (within about 5 %)	MAX17048 fuel gauge
Charging	LiPo over USB-C	LiPo over USB-C, with load sharing, so charging finishes properly and HA sees when USB is plugged in
Wake	Any key, or picking it up (accelerometer)	same

hardware/ has v2's schematic, pinout, parts list and case models.

Set up

You need Home Assistant 2026.10 or later with HACS, a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network, and any ESP32 board for the bridge.

1. Bridge: open the installer in Chrome or Edge, plug the ESP32 into your computer, select Install bridge and enter your Wi-Fi.
2. Home Assistant: in HACS, add paramworks-git/param-key-homeassistant as a custom repository (type Integration), download PARAM KEY, and restart Home Assistant. Under Settings → Devices & services → Discovered, add the ESPHome device param-key-bridge-…, then PARAM KEY.
3. Remote: switch it on. It shows up as discovered too: add it, and check that the 6-digit code in Home Assistant matches the one on its screen.

Set your access point's 2.4 GHz channel to a fixed one (1, 6 or 11) rather than auto: the remote learns the bridge's channel when it pairs. Bridge updates show up in Home Assistant; remotes update over USB from the installer.

Repository

Path	What	Licence
firmware/	ESPHome configs for the remote and the bridge; building, releasing, troubleshooting	MIT
components/param_key/	The ESPHome component they share: link, crypto, pairing, screen	MIT
docs/	Radio protocol, test vectors	MIT
site/	The installer page (published with each release)	MIT
hardware/	Schematic, pinout, parts list, case models and renders, FEA	All rights reserved

The Home Assistant integration lives in its own repository, param-key-homeassistant, so HACS can install it. hardware/ is generated from the private hardware sources and replaced on every export.

Get one

A small beta batch is coming. Join the list: it only takes your email. Questions and ideas: the forum thread, or Issues and Discussions here.