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 a classic controller shell 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. It ships running ESPHome, so Home Assistant discovers it on your network as a native ESPHome device. No custom integration to install, no YAML needed to adopt it, and full YAML control still there for the people who want it. Every button, every LED and the motion sensor show up as things your automations can use, all local, no cloud.
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.
Through Home Assistant it also reaches Google Home, Apple Home and Amazon Alexa. This is not a new platform to migrate to. It is a physical control surface for the one you already run.
It Stays Yours
No cloud, no account, no subscription. Control stays on your network, and setup never asks you to sign up for anything. At launch 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
There is an infrared receiver and emitter on board, so your old remote teaches OpenMote its codes and OpenMote sends them back out. From a button, a gesture, or an automation.
That covers anything that takes an infrared remote, smart or not. The TV, the soundbar, the LED strip behind the couch. Old hardware, no bridge, no subscription. Your gear does not need to be in anyone's code database: OpenMote learns straight from the IR remote in your hand. Clone any remote, or be one.
Play Games
OpenMote pairs as a standard Bluetooth LE gamepad. A PC, Mac, phone, tablet or Steam Deck just sees a controller: no drivers, no dongles, no companion app. Buttons and motion both work, including in the Dolphin emulator.
The limit, stated plainly: OpenMote has no Bluetooth Classic, and the original console requires it, so the two will not pair. If that pairing is your goal, this is not your product. For emulators and everything modern that supports a Bluetooth LE gamepad, it is.
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, in active development: plug in over USB-C, pick what you want the remote to be from a list, press one button. The board is fully usable without it, through the preflashed firmware and the standard toolchains. Studio is an on-ramp, not a requirement.
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: the complete remote, board installed in the shell, 1200 mAh battery in, firmware flashed.
The OpenMote Board is the same board, bare: battery installed, firmware flashed, ready to drop into a standard classic controller shell. The shell is not included; you bring your own, and the swap is four screws, one connector, nothing soldered or cut. Your original buttons, membrane, shell and battery cover all stay, so the buttons keep their original feel.
One is for using it. The other is for building it. Same board either way.
Features & Specifications
| 1. IR emitter and receiver | 4. Qwiic / STEMMA QT connector | 7. Button contacts, all twelve |
| 2. Rumble motor | 5. EN / SYNC button | 8. 4 indicator LEDs |
| 3. ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 module | 6. USB-C, charging and flashing | 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. Classic shells vary, so fit outside the standard shell is not guaranteed.
Comparisons
Against the things you would buy instead:
| Feature | OpenMote | SofaBaton X1S | Broadlink RM4 Pro | 8BitDo Pro 2 | ESP32-S3 DevKit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home Assistant | Yes, local | Community integration only | Official integration; vendor app to set up | No integration | If you build it |
| IR learn and send | On the remote itself | Hub learns and sends | IR and RF | No IR | Add your own IR parts |
| Buttons in your hand | 12, eleven programmable | Yes, app-assigned | No control buttons | Gamepad layout | Boot and Reset only |
| Motion sensing | 6-axis IMU, programmable | Wake-on-pickup only | No | Gyro in Switch mode | None on board |
| Speaker, mic, haptics | All three | Beeps only | None | Rumble only | None on board |
| Bluetooth gamepad | Yes, BLE HID | No | No | Yes | Only if you write it |
| Run your own code | Yes, Arduino and more | App config only | App config only | Remaps and macros | Yes |
| Expansion | Qwiic and GPIO | None | Sensor jack only | None | GPIO headers |
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, linked from openmote.io.
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
Shells: classic controller shells vary, including some official special editions with different internals, so fit is not guaranteed for every shell. The board is designed around the standard shell and fits the ones we have tested; if yours is unusual, the fully assembled OpenMote ships in a shell we have tested.
The console: no Bluetooth Classic means no pairing with the original console. That is a design constraint, and it is stated in Play Games above.
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.
