Remote Buddy FAQ

Record and send IR commands via AppleScript.

With Remote Buddy 2, you can record and send IR commands from your Mac using AppleScript.

What you need

  • Remote Buddy 2 installed and running on your Mac (the trial version during the trial period will also work)
  • a supported IR transmitter (right now: Flirc USB and many MCE IR receivers with transmitter)
  • the remote of the device you want to send IR commands for
  • optional: a USB extension cable to bring the IR transmitter close enough to the device to control

Recording an IR command using AppleScript

To record an IR command, use the irreceive command:

tell application id "com.iospirit.RemoteBuddy" irreceive format "microtimes" timeout 4 without noisecheck end tell

If you then press a button, irreceive will return a string with raw IR times, f.ex.:

1801,809,918,808,918,809,926,800,918,809,918,808,918,809,918,1693,1798,813,913,813,914,813,914,0

Sending an IR command using AppleScript

The string returned by the irreceive command can then be used to send the IR command using irsend:

tell application id "com.iospirit.RemoteBuddy" irsend microtimes "1801,809,918,808,918,809,926,800,918,809,918,808,918,809,918,1693,1798,813,913,813,914,813,914,0" end tell

Other options

You can also record and send IR commands from the command line and directly in Remote Buddy 2.


Last updated: Mar 18, 2024 – Filed under: Infrared Commands