• Install the shutdown script on your mediacenter installation. To do this choose the OS you are using from the options below (OpenElec, Raspbmc, XBian, ...) and follow the instructions.
• Switch off and disconnect the power plug from the RPi.
• Mount the supplied screw, washers and nut on the RPi’s existing mounting hole near the front.
• Plug in the RemotePi board, make sure the GPIO connectors line up.
• Adjust the nut under the RemotePi board until the board is levelled.
• Secure the RemotePi board with another nut from the top.
  
  
• Connect power to the RemotePi board’s Micro USB connector, do not use the Raspberry Pi power Micro USB connector. If you connect the power by accident to the Raspberry Pi connector, you will not damage anything, but the power control function of the RemotePi will not work.
• You will see a short red/green blink of the RemotePi’s LED to indicate the board is working.
• If you would like to use your existing RPi case, you will need to modify it, so that the micro USB power connector and the button on top of the RemotePi is accessible, and the LED and infrared receiver are visible from outside.
• If you want to use your own existing remote to control your mediacenter as well, then you will have to enable LIRC and create your own lircd.conf file. (If you use our remote we have already created the file for you and you only need to install it). This file tells the OS how to understand the keys on your remote. You can use the configuration guide on the remote page as a guideline, but you will still need to figure out the lircd.conf contents for your own remote as this file is different for every remote model. There are various tutorials on the web on how to do this, basically you either find a ready-made lircd.conf file or you run a program on the RPi which learns the key functions and creates a lircd.conf file for you.
  Please Note : If you create your own lircd.conf, please do not include the KEY_POWER key in the list. The power is handled by the RemotePi Board.

• Choose the button on the remote you want to use to switch your RPi on and off in the future, then press the hardware button on top of the RemotePi Board for about 15 seconds until you see the LED blinking green and red. Now you have about 20 seconds time to aim the remote towards the RemotePi Board’s infrared receiver and press the button you want to use for controlling the power of your RPi. You will see the green LED flashing when the button was learned. If no infrared command is learned within 20 seconds you see the red LED flash and the learning mode is exited without changing the current configuration.The learned configuration is remembered (i.e not lost), even when the power is disconnected from the RemotePi Board.
  NEW (for all boards shipped after 14 April 2014) : You can learn in two different commands from your remote, one for power on and one for power off. This can be useful, if you are using a Logitech Harmony universal remote, these can be configured to switch on or off all your devices at once. By using two different commands for power on and power off the remote can determine the power status of the RemotePi Board. To learn in two different commands, after entering learning mode press the remote button you want to use for power on first, then you see one short green LED flash. Then press the second button you want to use for power off. You see two short green LED flashes. Of course you can learn in the same remote button for on and off, in case you want to use only one button to toggle power.
• A short press of the button on top of the RemotePi Board power toggles the RPi in the same way the learned button on the remote does. While powering up, the LED flashes green and while powering down it flashes red for about a minute, during this time you cannot issue another power toggle request. This is to prevent cutting the power during startup / shutdown.
  
  
• Here is how you know that everything works correctly : When you switch off the power of the RPI using either the hardware button on top of the RemotePi Board or the remote, you will see your mediacenter shutting down on the TV within the few seconds. Then the power is cut about 1 minute (or faster) later. If the OS does not shut down first before the power is cut, then you need to double check your script installation.

Shutdown scripts

You will need to install one of the following shutdown scripts, these handle the power down request from the RemotePi Board and shut down the OS before the power is actually cut. Choose the shutdown script according to the OS you are using. To connect to the Raspberry Pi for the steps below you can use PuTTY under Windows or, if you use an Apple Mac, the built in Terminal program.

• Default user name for OSMC is osmc, password osmc
• Key in :
• cd /etc
  sudo nano rc.local
• Copy and paste the following into the nano editor window, just above the last line (before the line exit 0)
  /etc/irswitch.sh
• Press ctrl+x to exit the editor, y to confirm, enter to save the file
• Key in
  sudo nano irswitch.sh
• Copy and paste the following text into the editor window
  #!/bin/bash
  # this is the GPIO pin receiving the shut-down signal
  GPIOpin1=22
  echo "$GPIOpin1" > /sys/class/gpio/export
  echo "in" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio$GPIOpin1/direction
  while true; do
  sleep 1
  power=$(cat /sys/class/gpio/gpio$GPIOpin1/value)
  if [ $power != 0 ]; then
  sudo initctl stop xbmc
  sleep 4
  power=$(cat /sys/class/gpio/gpio$GPIOpin1/value)
  if [ $power == 0 ]; then
  echo "out" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio$GPIOpin1/direction
  echo "1" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio$GPIOpin1/value
  fi
  sudo shutdown -h now
  fi
  done
• Press ctrl+x to exit, y to confirm, enter to save the file
• Key in
  sudo chmod +x irswitch.sh
  sudo shutdown –r now
• After reboot you can use the RemotePi Board to power cycle OSMC

• Default user name is xbian, password raspberry
• Key in :
  cd /etc
  sudo nano rc.local
• Copy and paste the following into the nano editor window, just above the last line (before the line exit 0)
  (/etc/irswitch.sh)&
• Press ctrl+x to exit the editor, y to confirm, enter to save the file
• Key in
  sudo nano irswitch.sh
• Copy and paste the following text into the editor window
  #!/bin/bash
  # this is the GPIO pin receiving the shut-down signal
  GPIOpin1=22
  echo "$GPIOpin1" > /sys/class/gpio/export
  echo "in" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio$GPIOpin1/direction
  while true; do
  sleep 1
  power=$(cat /sys/class/gpio/gpio$GPIOpin1/value)
  if [ $power != 0 ]; then
  sleep 4
  power=$(cat /sys/class/gpio/gpio$GPIOpin1/value)
  if [ $power == 0 ]; then
  echo "out" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio$GPIOpin1/direction
  echo "1" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio$GPIOpin1/value
  fi
  sudo poweroff
  fi
  done
• Press ctrl+x to exit, y to confirm, enter to save the file
• Key in
  sudo chmod +x irswitch.sh
  sudo reboot
• After reboot you can use the RemotePi Board to power cycle XBian

Raspbian (tested with Raspbian 3.10.25)

• Default user name is pi, password raspberry
• The rest of the configuration for Raspbian is the same as for XBian, see above.

RetroPie (tested with RetroPie 2.2)

• Default user name is pi, password raspberry
• The rest of the configuration for RetroPie is the same as for XBian, see above.

The hardware

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This page was last updated 7-Apr-2015