OpenMote is a programmable universal remote in a nostalgic form factor. The same remote runs your TV, your smart home, or your games over Bluetooth. You do not buy a different remote for each one. You change what it is.
It comes two ways. Ready To Go is a finished remote, charged and flashed. Mod Your Own is the bare board for modding a classic remote you already have. Same board either way, an ESP32-S3 with WiFi, Bluetooth LE, motion sensing, a speaker, a mic, and infrared in both directions.
We watched it happen all weekend at Open Sauce 2026: people picked up a remote they had not touched in fifteen years and immediately knew what to do with it. That instinct is the interface. You already know how to hold this thing.
Run Your Home
OpenMote works with Home Assistant. Every button, the LEDs and the motion sensor become things your automations can use, all local, no cloud. We are making setup as painless as we can, and full YAML control is still there for the people who want it.
What that looks like is up to you. One button dims the lights and starts the movie. A double press runs the goodnight scene: lights off, TV off, thermostat down. The link from remote to Home Assistant is local, so it keeps working when your internet does not.
Press a button, run any automation you have in Home Assistant. OpenMote also pairs directly with Apple Home and Amazon Alexa over WiFi, so a button press fires a scene or a routine there too.
It Stays Yours
OpenMote runs on your own network. No cloud, no account, no subscription, and it keeps working with the internet unplugged. Before units ship, we will open-source the complete schematics, PCB layouts, BOM, the Arduino library and the Home Assistant firmware, so it keeps working whether or not we are around.
One Remote For Everything In The Room
The room is not one protocol. The TV and the AC want infrared. The lights and the thermostat live in Home Assistant over WiFi. The phone, the laptop and the streaming box want a Bluetooth remote or controller. OpenMote handles each of these from the same twelve buttons, and because it is an ESP32 running code you can change, anything with an open local API is fair game too, like WLED light strips.
The infrared part is a receiver and an emitter, so your old remote teaches OpenMote its codes and OpenMote sends them back out, from a button or an automation. That covers the gear that will never be smart: old TVs, the receiver in the cabinet, the LED strip behind the couch. No bridge, no subscription, no code database needed. Clone any remote, or be one.
Play Games
OpenMote pairs as a standard Bluetooth LE gamepad. A PC, an Android phone or tablet, or a Steam Deck just sees a controller: no drivers, nothing extra to buy. Buttons and motion both work, including in the Dolphin emulator. The same radio makes it a Bluetooth keyboard and media remote for Android TV, Google TV and Fire TV boxes.
It pairs with emulators and modern hardware, not the original console, which only speaks the older Bluetooth Classic.
Your Tools Already Work
And if you write code, it is a normal ESP32-S3: Arduino IDE, PlatformIO and ESP-IDF all work, and flashing happens over the same USB-C port you charge with. There is no programmer to buy.
Our Arduino library ships a working example for every peripheral, from buttons and motion to infrared and audio. The documentation will include the full pinout and the board settings that actually matter, like PSRAM and flash mode. Every one of those cost us an evening at some point, and they are all going into it.
Drive Your Own Hardware
A Qwiic / STEMMA QT connector takes hundreds of off-the-shelf Adafruit and SparkFun breakouts with one cable and no level shifting, and it is how the nunchuck-style breakouts work today. ESP-NOW talks straight to other ESP32 boards with no router in between, which is how you drive a robot or an RC car from the couch.
Every broken-out GPIO is labeled on the silkscreen, front and back. Wiring something new does not mean cross-referencing a pinout PDF.
It Talks And It Listens
There is a real speaker on a MAX98357A 3.2 W class-D amplifier, not a buzzer. A PDM microphone listens for claps, commands, or chaos. The rumble motor tells your hand what happened, and four indicator LEDs give you status you can read across the room. Projects can play sound, listen, and buzz back.
Pick An App. Or Build One.
You do not need to know how to code. OpenMote Studio is our companion app: plug in over USB-C, pick what you want the remote to be from a list, press one button. Done. Studio is coming together alongside the firmware, and everything else on this page works without it.
Ready To Go, Or Mod Your Own
The fully assembled OpenMote arrives charged, flashed, and on your WiFi in minutes. Nothing to build. In the box: a finished remote with the 1200 mAh battery in and firmware flashed, plus a screwdriver and a USB-C cable.
The OpenMote Board is for modding a classic remote you already own. In the box: the board with the battery installed and the same firmware flashed, plus a screwdriver and a USB-C cable. The donor remote is not included; everything from it gets reused except its original board. The shell, the buttons, the membrane and the battery cover all stay, so the buttons keep their original feel. Four screws, one connector, nothing soldered or cut.
One is for using it. The other is for building it. Same board either way.
Features & Specifications
| 1. IR emitter and receiver | 2. Rumble motor | 3. ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 module |
| 4. Qwiic / STEMMA QT connector | 5. EN / SYNC button | 6. USB-C, charging and flashing |
| 7. Button contacts, all twelve | 8. 4 indicator LEDs | 9. Microphone |
- ESP32-S3-WROOM-1, dual core at 240 MHz, 16 MB flash, 8 MB PSRAM, pre-certified module
- WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 5 LE with HID gamepad, ESP-NOW peer to peer
- 12 buttons, eleven freely programmable, the twelfth is power
- 6-axis IMU with two interrupt lines for wake on motion
- Infrared 940 nm emitter and 38 kHz receiver, learns as well as sends
- Audio: mono speaker on a MAX98357A 3.2 W class-D amplifier, PDM MEMS microphone
- Haptic rumble motor and 4 indicator LEDs plus charge light
- Qwiic / STEMMA QT I2C connector and silkscreened GPIO
- 1200 mAh lithium battery on a JST connector, USB-C charging and flashing; charges from any standard USB or USB PD supply at 5 V
- Software: Arduino, PlatformIO, ESP-IDF, plus preflashed ESPHome firmware for Home Assistant
What it does not do: there is no magnetometer, so no compass heading. There is no Bluetooth Classic, so no pairing with the original console. The board is built for the standard classic remote; see Risks for the variants.
Comparisons
Against the things you would buy instead:
| Feature | OpenMote | Unfolded Circle Remote 3 | Broadlink RM4 Pro | M5StickS3 | 8BitDo Pro 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home Assistant | Yes, local | Built in, local | Official integration, local polling | ESPHome if you build it | None |
| Infrared | Learns and transmits | Learns and transmits | Learns IR and RF | Learns and transmits | None |
| Buttons in your hand | 12, eleven programmable | Full remote keypad | No control buttons | 2, plus reset | Full gamepad layout |
| Motion sensing | 6-axis IMU, programmable | Accelerometer and gyro | None | 6-axis IMU | Switch and Steam only |
| Speaker, mic, haptics | All three | All three | None | Speaker and mic, no haptics | Vibration only |
| Bluetooth gamepad | Yes, BLE HID | Keyboard and mouse only | No | Only if you code it | Yes |
| Run your own code | Yes, Arduino and more | Integrations only, closed OS | App config only | Yes, Arduino and more | Remaps and macros only |
| Expansion | Qwiic and GPIO | None | None | Grove and HAT bus | None |
| Works without a cloud account | Yes | Yes | Local control, cloud app to set up | Yes, once flashed | No network |
Support & Documentation
The full pinout, setup guides, and a working example for every peripheral will live on GitHub. The board itself is half the documentation: every broken-out GPIO is labeled right on the silkscreen. Community lives on our Discord, where fit reports, builds and questions go.
Manufacturing Plan
We are past prototypes. Three full board generations have been through fabrication and real-world use, and beta units are in the hands of independent creators now. Elecrow handles PCB fabrication and assembly through Project Aviary, their manufacturing partnership with Crowd Supply; final assembly, flashing and packaging happen in house in Los Angeles. Battery transport docs and the EU/UK Declaration of Conformity are already filed.
Fulfillment & Logistics
Crowd Supply fulfills worldwide through Mouser Electronics. Free US shipping; international calculated at checkout. After the campaign, OpenMote stays available through the Crowd Supply store, so this is not a one-time run.
Risks & Challenges
Donor remotes: classic remotes vary, including some official special editions with different internals, so fit is not guaranteed for every donor. The board is designed around the standard remote and fits the ones we have tested; if yours is unusual, the fully assembled OpenMote comes in one we have tested. Fit reports for specific variants live on our Discord.
The console: no Bluetooth Classic means no pairing with the original console, as noted in Play Games.
Schedule and supply: our primary risk is parts availability. We buffer with multi-source parts and a pre-certified radio module, and if a date moves, you will hear it from us in the weekly updates.
