HDMI CEC

As I had mentioned in a previous post, I've repurposed my old gaming PC as a home theater PC. Its overkill for the job, sure, but it justifies holding onto it until I learn how to home lab. My gripe now is HDMI CEC.

The nvidia 2070 does not natively support HDMI CEC. From what I've found, some people get away with using an HDMI to display port adapter, but that doesn't seem to give what I'm after. Theres a weird dongle thing that seems to allow what I'm after in some capacity, but its a little pricy and kind of sketchy, getting mixed reviews.

What I'm chasing is the ability to pass through my TV's native remote inputs to my computer. To navigate my PC using the same remote I use for the TV itself, as well as my streaming set top box through the same feature. Turning the TV on/off and changing the input are bonus features as far as I'm concerned.

Further research seems to support a theory that I can just tap the HDMI CEC line, run that to an ESP32 to translate into HID inputs, and maybe script some extra stuff, while passing through all of the other pins through a female-to-female connection. ESP32 reads pin 13, watching for signals coming from the TV, translates them, then sends the corresponding input to the computer. No impact on video/audio since those are digital, they either work or they don't.

If anyone has any input at all on this, please feel free to comment. I'm rambling to think out loud and invite open collaboration. I can't be the only one that would like a better solution to this problem.

I've never worked with an ESP32 before, so I don't know how reasonable this would be. I figure price wise, I'll come close to the $54USD price point of the existing option, to make a proof of concept. The final product may be more after factoring in fabrication like PCB or printed case, etc. I'm not planning on mass producing this thing, I just want to solve my problem, and maybe help others in the process. Open source and copyleft the whole thing.