Onkyo Network Remote API

Everybody else wants a very portable handheld, clicker-like device to control their stereo, and u want to use a laptop?

That's my way of saying Onkyo probly spent zero time writing a Windows-API for it.

I just got an HT-RC360 and was curious about this as well. I was going through the RC360 posts and saw that it apparently supports ISCP (Integra Service Control Prototocol) over telnet.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...0#post20744320

From other reading, I think that's what the unofficial smartphone apps use as well. If you're doing it from Linux, that's probably just as easy as a web service if your particular receiver supports it. Did you find anything else out about an API or do any packet sniffing? I had thought about throwing something together for my Touchpad, and http API would make that a lot easier.

Hi, were you able to find any documentation on this? I just purchased an 809 and I am starting to add the IR commands to a custom web/application I use control my AV gear. I think this would be allot easier to go this route vs. adding all the IR commands. There is RS-232 serial connection on the back so my guess is the API is the same but the protocol would likely be tcp/ip. I imagine there must be a document out there for the serial commands.

I will post if I find anything further.

I am interested in the same thing. I did notice that the TX-NR's provide a basic web interface (unauthenticated) for configuring some aspects of the receiver.

I just started looking at this about 5 minutes ago, and tried to sniff IP packets between my iphone (running the Onkyo app) and my Receiver, but the traffic doesn't appear to be hitting the same switch as my PC, so I'm gonna have to move some cabling around. In any case, the HTTP stuff suggests there is hope...

--Kyle

Onkyo did publish a spec up until the 2011 models came out. Once they got it in their mind to do apps for their receivers, they closed their spec.

Currently, you need to be an authorized dealer or installer to access the documentation. They are also making new messages in the interface and not documenting them at all.

The latest spec they have is v1.21 and it covers nearly all the 2011 models. There are a bunch of changes it doesn't document though, and I needed to reverse engineer the new messages they use for their app.

rworne, do you know how the NLT command my receiver send me works I figured its information about the list, like name and such. then there is a lot i do not know
Heres a sample of commands i get.

NLT0A02001E00730000130A00The mountain of tickling 2012 by simoon
NLT0A02003200730000130A00The mountain of tickling 2012 by simoon
NLT0A02003C00730000130A00The mountain of tickling 2012 by simoon
NLT0A02004600730000130A00The mountain of tickling 2012 by simoon
NLT0A02005000730000130A00The mountain of tickling 2012 by simoon
NLT0A02005A00730000130A00The mountain of tickling 2012 by simoon
NLT0A02006400730000130A00The mountain of tickling 2012 by simoon
NLT0A02006E00730000130A00The mountain of tickling 2012 by simoon
NLT0A02000000730000130A00The mountain of tickling 2012 by simoon
NLT0A02000A00730000130A00The mountain of tickling 2012 by simoon
NLT0122000000000000000100
NLT0101000000010000000100P3
NLT0100000000280000000100My Favorites
NLT0101000000010000000100Radio Guld
NLT0100000100280000000100My Favorites
NLT0100000100280000000100My Favorites
NLT0100000100280000000100My Favorites
NLT0100000100280000000100My Favorites
NLT0100000100280000000100My Favorites
NLT0101000000010000000100Radio Guld
NLT0122000000000000000100
NLT0101000000010000000100Radio Guld
NLT0100000100280000000100My Favorites
NLTF300000500070000FFFF00NET
NLTF300000500070000FFFF00NET
NLTF300000500070000FFFF00NET

Where to begin?
You get a lot of info here, it's a "cheater message" that is designed to help out Onkyo's app.

You have several fields, they correspond to the contents of the network GUI screen on the TV. I'm nowhere near my setup now, but this is what I remember and it should get you going:
First byte is: the network source type
Second byte is: menu depth (how far you dug down)
3rd,4th byte: selected item from list
5th, 6th: total items in list
2nd to last byte: network icon for net GUI
Last byte: always 00
Any characters following that byte are the title for the net GUI

Just bring up the net menus on the TV, then navigate and watch the messages and the screen carefully. You'll get it eventually.

Thanks man! made it so much easier for me now!

Remember that this message uses hex values, so don't let that throw you off. While this message appears in 2010 and 2011 models, the 2011 models are the only ones that fully populate it. This may change with firmware updates for the 2010's, so be aware of that. Finally, the network source type is consistent among model years, but not *between* model years. So you can be confident for all the 2011 models, but do not assume the network source code will be the same on a 2010.

Also: 2012 models just came out. Who knows what they did with those?

I actually built an excel spreadsheet that used a command line utility I found that would send raw commands to my TX-NR1007 a few years back. In full screen mode on my 9" Dell Mini that I installed a touchscreen in, it worked wonderfully. Can't remember the name of the program though.

I've since moved on to my HP Touchpad and Droid, using OnkyoTroller. Then I use 2Player or Skifta to stream music.

I'm curious why you use OnkyTroller over the "official" Onkyo Remote app. Does it have additional features or functionality? Have you tried the "official" remote app.

For most people, the Onkyo app is fine. 3rd party developers have a different target: power users or users that Onkyo "forgot" - those people who have receivers more than 2 or 3 years old. Onkyo's support for Zone 2 and RIHD was lacking until their most recent release. I've supported those on iOS for more than a year.

That is why.

Check this blog

http://avrnet.wordpress.com/

Indeed, it's a 7 series so there is no alternative, not that I need one, as Onkytroller works great.

I've used that program linked below, avrnet.wordpress.com and it works great!

Hi rworne, do you know if the onkyo official app is closing its connection to the reciever in some kind of special way? my reciever keeps locking up irregular, sometimes (not always) when i close my program and try to start it up again, my whole reciever locks up. cant send anything nor recieves anything from it, still it says the connection was succesful.

Is this a hardware fault on my reciever? it has occasionally happened when using the official app for droid (but not nearly as often)

Edit forgot to mention that using the physical remote to navigate to the net/usb functions on the reciever does not help, still locks up

Nothing special, just the network stack in the Onkyo sucks.

They cannot handle commands coming in faster than a 10Hz rate, and are prone to buffer overrun issues related to that rate. Send 4 or 5 IFAQSTN commands back-to-back and see what I mean. There is also the possibility of uninitialized variables being returned - this is particularly nasty if you do not scrub the data coming in.

You can open multiple sockets, but if you do not disconnect them, the receiver will start to stumble with too many open connections.

I just use a socket open and close to connect and disconnect. I used to use my own network code, but switched to cocoaasyncsockets for something more robust.

Strange, i used to do the same thing, open and close the socket. but now i never close the socket, just leaves it open even if the program is terminated i leave the socket open. seemed to solve the hangup problem. and just to be safe i added code so that after every command i send the thread waits 0.1 seconds.

Link to a video of my program, its ugly but its my first ever so do keep that in mind
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD44m...oJRvYtUlgUzSE=

That's a very good first cut at an application. You may not need to add the delay after the send, it's important only if you have repeating commands like FF or Volume changes. Just make sure the rate of these commands do not exceed 10 Hz. I ran in this issue because in my app each tab is a subclass and the main class had an initialization routine that tried to sync with the receiver. When my app launched, each subclass (4 of them) tried to sync at once. Bad news. It caused a 5% chance of a receiver lockup, and did I ever get a lot of support emails on that one.

Thanks, it has taken me some time to get working since i had to learn everything while doing it, but its fun.

had a similar problem before where my thread listenening on the socket tried to sync with the reciever every loop, 100% chance of lockup until i found it. i think i am gonna keep my 100 ms wait time after each sent commands for safety. Right now i am trying to implement a flowing playlist, instead of the 10 items at a time that onkyo is supplying

Be careful with that playlist thing - if you have a lot of songs, people may not like the fact that it can only load ~10 titles a second. It's probably faster than that. It's better you go via uPnP and get the list that way from the DLNA server and command the AVR via uPnP to play the lists you manage yourself.

so far i am the only user , but i will gladly share my program if anyone should want it (doesnt know if it will work with other then linux though, written in java as runnable jar)

your estimate was very accurate, ~12 titles a second, but i cant get the lists from dlna(i think) i am using usb and spotify as my main inputs or do you mean i can get the lists from the reciever some other way? without waiting for my reciever to separately send the list title by title

otherwise the new function is awesome! Something i really missed!, thinking about storing the playlists i get in a textfile for easy read later.

I hope you guys are aware for the control/feature table available from Onkyo for the AVRs that have an RS232 port. Though antiquated the serial buss is still used by many of the custom install controllers..

Hope that helps..

Just my $0.02...

Any links? i do not really get what you are trying to tell me

Here's the spreadsheet with all of the control codes and someone already made a command line and GUI control app for the onkyos called oyremote.

You are correct, you can only get this for DLNA sources. Otherwise you need to get them the slow way.

You can cache the lists. You can use the total item count as a check to see if you need to flush the cache and reload it as well. It's still a hassle, but if you have a list of 1500 items, you can tell the receiver to play item #999, even if items 1-10 are the ones displayed on the screen.

For the initial attempt, I'd forego the caching and do it the slow way.

Also, the NTCUP and NTCDOWN do display/select one item at a time, but if you do an NTCLEFT or NTCRIGHT, it will send the next page of 10 items at once and is a bit faster.

That list (while good) is about a year out of date. There is a v1.21 of the list and a 1.22 should exist about now. Onkyo does not seem to be willing to share these anymore now that they have their own app out.

They've also added some undocumented messages that seem to have the purpose of giving their app a leg up over the competition, but I am reverse-engineering them faster then they are able to update their app.

Another hint to those of you wanting to delve deeper into the workings of the Onkyo protocol:

Download their free iOS application (probably the Android version would be useful too) and start poking around the files. There's tons of info on different receivers, including a few that have not been released or announced yet.

Yes, i got that working yesterday, now it seems almost necessary to cache all the lists depending on menudept,source input, name and lenght, then use the length to determine if it needs refreshing. along with a manual refresh button

also i would need someone to try it on windows, as far i have only tried it with linux, does not have acces to a windows computer.