The couch cushions ate it. The dog hid it. It has transcended into another dimension. Here is how I designed my "always-there" universal remote in Home Assistant.
It’s 8:00 PM on a Friday. The pizza just arrived. You sink into the couch, ready to fire up Plex or binge the latest Netflix series. You reach for the remote...
And it’s gone.
The couch cushions ate it. The dog hid it. It has transcended into another dimension.
I use a Logitech Harmony Hub setup with an LG Smart TV. It works beautifully-when I can actually find the physical remote. After spending way too many evenings tearing the living room apart looking for a piece of black plastic, I decided to build the ultimate backup plan.
I built a Universal TV Remote right inside Home Assistant.
This isn't just a clunky list of toggle switches. It's a fully designed UI that lives on my phone (which is always in my pocket), my tablet, my work laptop, and, best of all, on my wrist via Wear OS.
Here is how I designed my "always-there" universal remote.
A good software remote needs to be faster than digging under the sofa. It needs to look good and respond instantly.
To achieve the aesthetic I wanted-clean buttons, intuitive layouts, and distinct sections-I relied heavily on a few custom Lovelace frontend cards. If you don't have these installed via HACS yet, go get them:
• Mushroom Cards: For the overall clean, rounded aesthetic. • custom:button-card: The heavy lifter. It allows for precise control over styling, icons, and tap actions. • vertical-stack-in-card: To group elements tightly together without ugly borders.
My primary view is designed for speed. It handles the 90% use cases: turning the system on, changing the volume, and navigating simple menus.
It leverages the Harmony Hub integration to switch activities (Plex, PC HDMI, Netflix, Xbox, Switch) with a single tap. The directional pad and volume controls send commands directly to the LG TV or Soundbar via the Hub.
It looks incredibly clean on mobile, but it's ridiculously convenient on my smartwatch. I set up Home Assistant tiles on my watch face so I can turn on the TV or mute the volume without even picking up my phone. It feels like living in the future.
Note: I’ve replaced my specific device IDs with placeholders in the code below. You’ll need to plug in your own Harmony Hub device ID. (Pro-Tip: You can give your Device ID and this code block to an AI like Gemini or ChatGPT and ask it to plug them in for you. Just be careful-YAML is highly sensitive to spacing, so double-check the indentation before pasting it into Home Assistant!)
Disclaimer: This post is for educational and informational purposes only. The YAML code provided is meant as a template and requires customization with your specific Home Assistant entity and device IDs. Grant Glazer assumes no liability for configuration errors or system instability resulting from these modifications.